WE own a condo near a beach. We rent the place out, and go down once a year to stay and straighten things out.
As with all renting situations, you have to expect that tenants will break stuff…so it is not unexpected that we would have to fix things from time to time. But-I find it hard to accept that you can destroy two blenders …in 6 months?
We had two new blenders, and after the current tenants left, both were broken.What were they doing? Mixing concrete?
In any case, we brought a new blender…I’m curios to see how long this one will last!
Vacation condo at the beach? That’s a lot of daquiris.
Alice is right - frozen drinks will burn out an ordinary blender in no time flat.
Even an expensive blender will eventually fail after too many drunken rounds of frozen margaritas.
I would recommend not supplying a blender for a rental unit.
Are you sure you didn’t rent the place you to the Will It Blend guys?
Or margaritas. I think that if you want to provide a blender, you should haunt secondhand stores and garage sales. My first choice, though, would be to not provide a blender at all. Or build the cost of the blenders into the rental prices.
How about a hand operated blender? Hard to burn those out.
And it’s fun to watch them try to use it by the third batch of drinks.
Ice burns out blenders like it’s its job, and even supposedly “ice crusher blenders” don’t always work. I burned out several until my grandmother gave me her 40 year old monstrosity, which could probably blend a car. Speaking of which, my sister’s Blendtec does fine with ice, too, but I sure as hell wouldn’t pay for one of those for a rental unit.
I’d either give up or go the garage sale route.
A slow but effective way to dispose of bodies? Sort of like the vacationer’s version of a hillbilly woodchipper. 
Friend of ours made a blender for his boat, using a gas motor from a weedwacker. Works great.
Yep, I burned out two regular blenders trying to crush ice for drinks. We ended up having to buy an expensive Waring with a hefty motor - still going strong many years later.
Trying to mix large amounts of bread dough will do a mixer in quickly, also.
I burned out two standard blenders in about two years making smoothies with lots of ice. In both ones it was the spinny-gear thingee that pokes out of the base and makes the blade turn that was the weak point: Metal on plastic = lots of plastic dust and eventually no more gear thingee. Ended up getting this Oster due to the vaunted “all metal drive train” plus I figured one simple switch would be less likely to break than a bunch of buttons. It’s almost three years old now and going strong. I’ve cracked the jar base twice, but it’s a $5 part and easy to get a replacement. All the other parts are easy to replace, too. If I was leaving it in a rental unit I’d lay in a supply of extra bases, blades, lids and jars just in case. I also got a hell of a lucky deal at Target, found it on sale for $40 after I’d already decided to buy it for full price on Amazon.
I wouldn’t turn down a gift Blendtec or Vitamix, but for a blender in the pricerange of mere mortals, I can’t recommend that Oster highly enough!
Damn Canadians.
Don’t try smooshing up cooked beans like pintos or garbanzos in a blender. My Oster had a hella time . I had to dump them out in a bowl and attack them by hand.
I don’t think that you should not have a blender there. When people are on vacation, they want their frou-frou drinks. I do think that you should buy a commercial or heavy-duty blender, and maybe you can attach the base of it to the counter or the wall, so it doesn’t disappear. Or at least tell people when they book to byoblender.
Yeah that was my first thought. I once burned out a BRAND NEW blender trying to make a margarita. The reason your blended margarita costs so much at a bar is they have to pay for their $500 professional blender every six months. (I’m obviously talking about small local bars and not someplace like Chevy’s/Chili’s who have margaritas on tap like a slurpee machine.)
Yeah, you need to add a bunch of liquid to do anything with beans, like to the point where you’re halfway to soup. I usually have to add at least 2/3 of a cup of liquid to whatever I’m blending for it to work right. I don’t have a food processor, but I get the impression that they do better with chopping/smooshing stuff without added liquid?
I like Alice The Goon’s suggestion of investing in a commercial blender, say $400-$500 and then bolting it down. Could end up as a selling point in your rental listings: Unlimited margaritas and daquiris!*
*tequila and mixes not included
I have that model as well, and it’s been going strong for about 10 years. We don;t make frozen drinks every day though.
The blenders-on-a-bar work better and require no liquids, you have to clean the blades occasionally but then, that’s easier to do than with the vase style.
But don’t discard those lopped off fingers! They’ll make a festive garnish for almost any tray of appetizers this Halloween Season…