Expensive bit of plastic

Yesterday a very small bit of plastic that connected the plunger to the seal broke in my loo cistern, meaning the water wouldn't shut off. I couldn't repair it myself so got a plumber out. He had to remove the whole loo, replace the filling system and the pipe and put it all back together again. One of the problems with these plastic ones is you can't just replace a part. Anyway, I found out he lives just over the back of me and was a nice chap, so it's good to know a decent plumber. So for the sake of about 1 mm of plastic I spent nearly 50 quid. Sigh.
PS - no matter how clean your house the inside of your cistern always looks as though you live in a crack den.