THE NORTH SHORE TIMES – EXCLUSIVE ARCHIVE
Circa 2026 – The Story They Tried to Flush Away
“BRIDGE VIEWS, BURST PIPES, AND BEAKED SABOTEURS: THE MILSONS POINT NIGHTMARE”
By Our Special Correspondent
Milsons Point. The name conjures images of glittering harbour vistas, the majestic arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and the elegant art deco apartments that have housed everyone from silent film stars to visiting royalty. What the real estate brochures conveniently omit, however, is the suburb’s dark secret: its plumbing was apparently designed by a sadist with a grudge against celebrities.
For one unforgettable year, three of the world’s most recognisable women—Lady Gaga, Rihanna, and Catherine Zeta-Jones—found themselves living within a three-block radius of each other, all renting heritage-listed apartments with million-dollar views and five-dollar pipework. The Mercury sat down with this unlikely sisterhood to hear the stories they’ve been too traumatised to share—until now.
Catherine’s Cascade of Chaos
Catherine Zeta-Jones, elegant as ever in a navy silk blouse, sets down her teacup with the careful precision of someone who has survived worse than a Welsh rainstorm. “Darling, I have faced down paparazzi, Broadway critics, and my husband’s golf swing. Nothing—and I mean nothing—prepared me for the hot water system in that glorious building on Alfred Street South.”
The trouble began subtly. A drip here. A groan there. Then, the apocalypse. “I was hosting afternoon tea for a group of philanthropists. Very important people. The scones were out. The clotted cream was perfect. And then, from the kitchen, came a sound like a wounded whale.” She closes her eyes at the memory. “The cold water tap in the butler’s pantry had decided to stage a protest. It wasn’t dripping. It was launching a pressurised jet of water directly at the ceiling. Within thirty seconds, my kitchen was a water feature. The plumber—a perpetually unimpressed man named Barry—arrived, took one look, and said, ‘Yeah, the pressure valve’s rooted. Bloody cockatoos been at the roof fittings again.'”
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Rihanna’s Reflux Rebellion
Rihanna, draped across a velvet chaise like a modern-day empress, lets out a low chuckle. “You think that’s bad? Mine was a crime scene.” She leans forward, gold jewellery glinting. “I’m in the middle of a Zoom call with my entire design team. We’re finalising the Fenty Skin packaging. Everything is pristine. And then, the toilet in my guest bathroom—which nobody had used in three weeks—decides to stage a volcanic eruption.”
She pauses for dramatic effect. “Brown water. Coming up. Not going down. Coming up. Out of the bowl. Onto the marble floor. Under the door. I had to evacuate my entire team to the balcony while I stood there with a mop like a common janitor, screaming into my laptop, ‘I AM SORRY, THIS IS NOT A PERFORMANCE PIECE.'” The culprit? A tree root from a gigantic fig tree in the neighbouring park had infiltrated the century-old clay sewer pipe. But according to the plumber—a man named Dazza—the root had been “assisted” by local wildlife. “He told me, ‘The king parrots, love. They drop the fig seeds into the cracks. They’re nature’s little demolition crew.’ I nearly flew back to Barbados that night.”
Gaga’s Gurgling Gauntlet
Lady Gaga, wearing an architectural headpiece that resembles a defunct showerhead, smiles enigmatically. “Mine was… operatic.” She describes the night she was composing the final track for her jazz album. “I had the grand piano in the living room, the bridge lights twinkling through the window, and I was at one with the universe. Then, the floor drain in the laundry room started singing.”
Not singing in a metaphorical sense. Singing in a literal, gurgling, almost-human register. “It was harmonising with my melody. I thought I’d discovered a new acoustic phenomenon. Turns out, the main waste pipe for the entire building had a blockage that was creating air pressure oscillations. It was a plumbing pipe that wanted to be a flautist.” The resolution involved three plumbers, an industrial auger, and the discovery of a child’s toy yacht, a 1980s tennis ball, and what appeared to be a very old, very sad oyster. “Kev—the head plumber—shook his head and said, ‘The rosellas, miss. They nick stuff from the balconies and drop it down the vents. They’re collecting.’ I asked what they were collecting. He said, ‘Your sanity, by the looks of it.'”
The Feathered Felons of Milsons Point
And here lies the thread that binds these three tales of watery woe: the birds. Specifically, the parrots of the Lower North Shore. In Milsons Point, the avian population is not merely a charming backdrop; it is an organised crime syndicate with wings and an unhealthy obsession with rubber, copper, and causing emotional damage.
“The cockatoos are the enforcers,” Catherine declares, warming to her theme. “They don’t just damage things. They do it with intent. I watched one peel the weather seal off my entire balcony door, piece by piece, while maintaining eye contact. It knew exactly what it was doing. It was sending a message.”
Rihanna agrees with a vehement nod. “The sulphur-crested ones are the worst. They have that little yellow crest like a crown, and they think they’re royalty. One of them figured out how to turn on my outdoor tap by pecking the handle. I came home to find my entire courtyard underwater. The neighbour’s cat was floating past on a piece of driftwood. The plumber said, ‘Yeah, they do that. They like the sound of running water. It’s like ASMR for psychopaths.'”
But it was the king parrot and the rosella that Gaga found most sinister. “The king parrot is too beautiful to be real. It looks like a Christmas decoration. But it’s a saboteur. It has a specific taste for the rubber seals in washing machine hoses. I went through three hoses in two months. I had to wrap them in stainless steel mesh. My laundry looked like a fortress. And the rosella—the little blue-cheeked one—it would sit on my windowsill and just watch me, tilting its head, as if it were waiting for the next catastrophe.”
The three women formed an informal support group, sharing photos of beak-shaped damage, swapping plumber recommendations, and commiserating over the astronomical call-out fees. “We learned the hierarchy,” says Rihanna, now an unofficial expert. “Cockatoo does the heavy demolition. King parrot does the surgical sabotage of rubber components. Rosella is the scout—it finds the vulnerabilities and reports back to the flock. It’s a military operation.”
The Final Flush
Their collective breaking point came during a torrential rainstorm that overwhelmed Milsons Point’s ancient stormwater system. Catherine’s balcony flooded, Rihanna’s basement became a swimming pool, and Gaga’s piano—the beloved grand piano—was nearly ruined when water cascaded through a light fixture.
“We all called the same emergency plumber at the same time,” Catherine recalls. “He showed up with three vans and a look of profound resignation. He fixed us all in one marathon session. And as he left, he looked up at the flock of cockatoos watching from the power lines and yelled, ‘I know it was you! I’ll be back with a slingshot!'”
Gaga smiles, shaking her head. “He never came back with the slingshot. He knew it was a losing battle. The birds had won. They always win.”
Rihanna sums it up with a shrug and a grin. “Milsons Point taught me that you can buy the view, you can buy the apartment, but you cannot buy peace from a king parrot with a vendetta. Would I do it again? For that view of the bridge at sunrise?” She pauses. “Absolutely. I’d just hire a full-time plumber to live in the cupboard.”
Catherine raises her teacup in a toast. “To Milsons Point. The most beautiful nightmare we ever called home.”
Lady Gaga raises her own glass—which may or may not be a repurposed pipe fitting. “And to the parrots. May they choke on their next rubber washer.”