# Great moments in homeowner stupidity **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 6, 2011, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968 "2011-07-06T01:08:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Sgt.Niedermayer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/13edae/32.png) [@Sgt.Niedermayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sgt.Niedermayer)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/21 "2011-07-07T02:11:56Z")
A Realtor friend once told me a story about a family trying to sell their house… Said it was a nice place, good price, etc. but a home inspector quickly revealed a major problem: the man of the house had decided to make space in the attic for additional storage–by sawing through those pesky boards poking every-which-way. Yep, the rafter braces. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 2:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/22 "2011-07-07T02:23:04Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > I have a good one, we have an old turn of the last century furnace for steam heat, originally coal, fitted with a gas burner. One winter we got the pilot lit, but couldn’t get the gas burner to turn on with the thermostat. Call the local plumber, he pokes around for 15min and flips a little black toggle switch on the burner control unit, bingo, we’re heatin with gas. Quite the bill for flipping a switch, but I can’t deny the man his wages. It’s the “which screw to turn” joke come to life. A few years ago, I was having some issues with my stove. I put a thermometer in it to monitor it for a few days and found that the problem was that it was claiming to be preheated before it actually was. What I mean is, if you set it to say, 300, it would get to about 250, the light would come on (and you would put your food in) but it would still take another 15 minutes or so to actually get up to 300. This all seemed very odd to me, because you’d assume whatever turned the light on and off would also control the flame. Anyways, I kept an eye on it for a while and this was always the case, and since I was sort of looking to replace it, I went ahead and got a new one. Same exact thing happened with the new one so I threw out the thermometer (that took 15 minutes to react to temperature changes) ---
**Author:** ![KRC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/45deac/32.png) [@KRC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KRC)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/23 "2011-07-07T04:09:01Z")
Once I was left to look after my younger brother and sister, while my parents were partying. I solved the problem by assigning them to watch TV while I listened to some Zep. I was just kicking back to Stairway when I heard “Kabboom!” It came from the dishwasher! After determining that part of the dishwasher had blown up and there was water everywhere and more coming out, I yelled for my sister and brother, who were clueless as to how to handle the situation. At that point I, using my 16 years of knowledge, waded into the water surrounding an electrical appliance, and managed to undo the thing. Which stopped the flood, although my mother, after coming home to help clean the flood, was surprised that we weren’t fried. ---
**Author:** ![Rasa](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rasa/32/3578_2.png) [@Rasa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rasa)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 4:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/24 "2011-07-07T04:17:14Z")
I left the garage door open accidentally overnight on the coldest day of the year. This caused the well pump to freeze, leading to no water in the house. So I closed the door, ran my car, and used a hairdryer to try to thaw the pump pipes. (Why I didn’t get carbon monoxide poisoning, I will never know.) The next morning when I got up to shower, the water came on, then petered out. I went to the garage to look, and there was water SHOOTING out of the wall behind the washing machine. I guess the water there was still frozen, and turning on the shower forced water through the pipe and burst an O ring. There were a few inches of steaming hot water in my garage, it looked like thule fog had rolled in. I found the cutoff switch, then sat and cried. ---
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/25 "2011-07-07T05:03:26Z")
Walked past our external electric hot water heater one day and saw a piece of string hanging there, with a sign saying to pull it once every six months to make sure the relief value worked. OK, seems reasonable, pulled it, hot water came pissing out as you’d expect - but never stopped. Not sure what I was expecting to happen but it wasn’t that. Eventually I got to thinking that if all the hot water drained out the element would be in air and overheat. So I turned off the water input :smack: and called a plumber - this was of course a Sunday and so he cost a fortune (ever notice how household emergencies like this only ever happen on Sundays?). In five seconds he saw that the lever the string was attached to was just a little stuck through not having ever been used before, pushed it back up by hand and all was well. So much for any pretensions I had to being an engineer and a handyman. ---
**Author:** ![AnnaLucretia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e95f7d/32.png) [@AnnaLucretia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnnaLucretia)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/26 "2011-07-07T14:02:14Z")
> [@Baracus](#): > > For the past few days I have been waging a battle with my smoke detectors. The motherfucker downstairs would not stop beeping once every 45 seconds for four minutes every few hours. First I changed the battery and it still beeped. Then figuring it was defective, I bought a new one and the new one fucking beeped. We have two “interconnected” alarms and I figured maybe it was the upstairs one that was screwed up and was making the downstairs one beep. So I replaced the upstairs one with the old downstairs one. The downstairs one still beeped. This morning I thought that perhaps the battery that came with the new one was hosed and that is why even the new one was beeping. That wasn’t it. > > So finally I am perusing the First Alert FAQs and read this: > > Now who could be that stupid? Why me of course! I never thought to check the CO detector plugged into the wall socket right near the smoke detector :smack: The chirps are so freaking loud and piercing I couldn’t tell it wasn’t coming from the ceiling. > > I am just feeling so stupid yet satisfied to finally have it figured out that I had to share. I’m quoting this entire thing, because I did EXACTLY THIS myself a few weeks ago. I thought I was going crazy… ---
**Author:** ![AnnaLucretia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e95f7d/32.png) [@AnnaLucretia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnnaLucretia)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 2:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/27 "2011-07-07T14:07:32Z")
> [@Haunted\_Pasta](#): > > Winner: Our dishwasher wouldn’t start, no matter what we did. It was old anyway, so we just decided to replace it rather than get it repaired. We bought a new one and had it delivered. And then, in what I still consider to be my greatest homeowner accomplishment ever (yes, my standards are low), we installed it ourselves. I think it took us about seven hours, whereas a pro would probably have done it in about 45 minutes, but even so, we were very proud of ourselves when we were finished. We fired it up, and… it wouldn’t start. After a brief soul-crushing moment, I brightened up and said “Wait! The wall switch!” The wall switch had been off- we realized MIL had probably inadvertently turned it off when helping do our dishes on a recent visit. I turned it back on and, Hallelujah! It worked! We did it! > > And then, the reason for the old dishwasher not working dawned on me… I returned from travel last week to bad news from my husband - we need a new dishwasher, because our old one just won’t start no matter what. Yes, he says, I checked the power supply, yes I hit all the buttons - honey, I’m not an idiot, we need a new dishwasher! The I showed him the child lock. Then I left the house for a few hours so he could be mortified in private. As an aside - I’ve responded more to this thread than any other in my Dope history I think…what that says about me, I’m not sure. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/28 "2011-07-07T14:23:09Z")
> [@AnnaLucretia](#): > > I returned from travel last week to bad news from my husband - we need a new dishwasher, because our old one just won’t start no matter what. Yes, he says, I checked the power supply, yes I hit all the buttons - honey, I’m not an idiot, we need a new dishwasher! > > The I showed him the child lock. Then I left the house for a few hours so he could be mortified in private. > > As an aside - I’ve responded more to this thread than any other in my Dope history I think…what that says about me, I’m not sure. Dishwashers come with a child lock? ---
**Author:** ![Cheesesteak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cheesesteak/32/3694_2.png) [@Cheesesteak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheesesteak)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 2:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/29 "2011-07-07T14:29:00Z")
> [@Morgyn](#): > > Dishwashers come with a child lock? As the parent of a 3 year old who loves pushing buttons and turning knobs, I can attest that there is a market for dishwashers with child locks. ---
**Author:** ![Morgyn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morgyn/32/3041_2.png) [@Morgyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morgyn)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 2:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/30 "2011-07-07T14:49:56Z")
> [@Cheesesteak](#): > > As the parent of a 3 year old who loves pushing buttons and turning knobs, I can attest that there is a market for dishwashers with child locks. Heh. When I go to baby showers, I always give things like outlet covers and cabinet, oven, and refrigerator door safety locks. I figure everyone else has the cute clothes and things like that covered, so I go for the practical stuff that no one ever seems to think about. I didn’t know they made [molly-guards](http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/M/molly-guard.html) for the buttons, though. Useful! ---
**Author:** ![curious11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ac91a4/32.png) [@curious11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curious11)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/31 "2011-07-07T17:27:48Z")
My then wife and I wanted to have a terrace built in the back of the house to get more level areas in 2002. One contractor wanted 40k and would provide all the materials. Another contractor wanted 8k and we would buy everything from home depot or wherever. I actually wanted to go with the 40k guy, and wait a year until we could save up at least half of the money. We decided to go with the 8k guy and ended up spending 7-8k on materials. So later, after the work was finished, the neighbors complained and the city came out and asked for the engineering drawings and permits for the terrace walls. And there weren’t any. At one point the question came up about the material used for the walls, and a manufacturer’s representative came out to see if the material was used correctly. That person was the 40k contractor. The material used was only designed to support 3 foot walls, not the 9 foot wall that was at the bottom of the property. Yikes! He okayed the 4 foot wall, the first wall, but not the bottom wall. I went back and forth with the city and the contractor for a couple of months and eventually paid a couple hundred dollars for a permit of some sort. My understanding was that the permit was for the ability to create the terrace walls and that the engineering of the walls was still an issue, an issue we never addressed. That was in 2004. I guess the city forgot about the property as there wasn’t a black flag or red flag on the property when we went to sell it in 2009. Between 2003 and 2009 there had been a pretty good earthquake and 2 very wet rainy seasons, which the wall handled just fine. The history of the wall was fully disclosed to the buyers. The contractor that did the work filed bankruptcy in 2004, so no way to get him to bring the work up to code. The neighbor below us, at one 4th of July block party, commented on how much he liked the wall, as it was a very prominent feature from his backyard. I thought to myself, “that’s good, cause based on the rep’s assessment, someday it’ll be in your backyard!” ---
**Author:** ![Shecky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/85e7bf/32.png) [@Shecky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shecky)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 6:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/32 "2011-07-07T18:08:29Z")
Best move: 2nd floor air conditioner, right out the window. Not even my house. I had put them in the upstairs of some friends who were on vacation. I went to move it, and did not have a hand on it, so down 2 stories it went. Up shot is that it hit soft muddy ground. A dented shell, and it’s still churning away! Runnerup: putting linoleum peel n stick in the same house’s bathroom. We couldn’t get the clawfoot to lift up enough, so I He-Manned it. Next morning, it was a shock to see that it was raining inside the kitchen below the bathroom. I had broken the 100 year old pipe. right at shere it meets the elbow. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/33 "2011-07-07T18:37:53Z")
Staring at the end of a garden hose wondering why water isn’t coming out, while shaking out the hose kink. The dog was the only witness. ---
**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/34 "2011-07-07T19:07:16Z")
First moved into the house, found a timer switch in the basement. Figured it turned off basement lights that may have been left on, so I set it to turn off after 7pm. Forgot all about it. Fast forward to that winter. Really bummed that we couldn’t use the outlets in the upper corners on the front porch for Christmas lights. It seemed like what they were put there for, but they kept shutting off after being on for a couple of hours… ---
**Author:** ![zamboniracer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e9a140/32.png) [@zamboniracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zamboniracer)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/35 "2011-07-07T19:11:00Z")
Once when we had an electrical power outage in our area I decided that I’d have something quick to eat. It took me a while to figure out why the microwave wasn’t working. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/36 "2011-07-07T19:17:31Z")
34 posts, and I’m the first one with the [relevant XKCD](http://xkcd.com/905/)? ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/37 "2011-07-07T19:56:24Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > 34 posts, and I’m the first one with the [relevant XKCD](http://xkcd.com/905/)? I was thinking about [this](http://xkcd.com/349/) one. It’s fairly applicable to physical construction projects, as well as computers. There was the time I bought a freezer for the basement. The morning it was to be delivered it for some reason struck me to check whether it would fit through the non-standard basement door. Well, it turned out it did, at least once we removed the door frame and trim (at least we didn’t have to worry about taking the hinges apart to remove the door from the frame; since everything was coming out together). Even got everything put back sort-of plumb and more or less level within a couple months, too. Just don’t look too closely at how the trim is two inches farther out than it used to be. ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/38 "2011-07-07T20:35:25Z")
All that paperwork we fill in to buy a house, and there are no IQ or basic competency tests. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![curious11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ac91a4/32.png) [@curious11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curious11)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/39 "2011-07-07T20:45:55Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > 34 posts, and I’m the first one with the [relevant XKCD](http://xkcd.com/905/)? Is there a rule 38 that states “for every MPSIMS there is an applicable XKCD”? (I’d link to the rule 34 XKCD, but I don’t have access to XKCD from work) ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2011, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968/40 "2011-07-07T21:08:24Z")
> [@artemis](#): > > **Baracus** , I have a nearly identical story - except that in mine that infernal chirping was caused by a bell in my parrot’s cage. Boy, did I feel like an idiot when (after several hours) I finally managed to track down the source of that unbelievably irritating sound (by sheer dumb luck - I was walking past her cage when she rang it). Could have been worse. She could have learned to mimic the noise herself. When I was a freshman in high school, my parents bought an old house because they wanted the one acre lot that it was on. I got to mow the grass, which was nearly knee high. I was about halfway through the first time when suddenly there was a clunk, and something went shooting across the lawn. Seems the previous owners had replaced a sprinkler head, which could be mowed over, with a shower head, which stuck up about four inches too high for that. With all the other DIY oddnesses, replacing the missing head was assigned a low priority. We had a fountain in our front yard for a few months. My younger cousins got to come play in it a couple of times before it was fixed. Who puts a shower head onto a sprinkler riser? And why did they have a spare one? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/great-moments-in-homeowner-stupidity/587968.md?page=3)