Monday night, we discovered that our freezer wasn’t working. Our neighbors were nice enough to let us move most of our frozen stuff into the freezer in their basement. We called the appliance repair people. Now the freezer is working, but the ice maker still isn’t.
Mr. Neville pulled the fridge out from the wall when he realized the freezer wasn’t working, and discovered water damage behind the fridge. It appears that the French drain outside the kitchen door is blocked, and is overflowing into a pipe that goes into that wall. Mr. Neville and the neighbor were trying to snake it last night, but were not successful.
To top it off, our internet connection at home has been down since Tuesday. Mr. Neville keeps trying to call Verizon about it, but he says they’re basically blowing him off.
Anybody know anything about any of those things? Or just want to reassure me that this week will eventually end?
Sorry to hear about that. If it makes you feel any better, I discovered over the weekend that water is flowing *from *our leach bed and *into *our septic tank whenever it rains. Ever have sewage back up into your house? I guess I am relating this just to let you know that your problems could be worse.
Yes, actually. We’ve had problems in the past with our sewer line that caused sewage to back up into the house. I have to call the plumbers sometime soon and have them snake the sewer line, just to make sure that doesn’t happen again.
As far as not having services, I feel your pain. When I moved, I carefully planned moving my cable and phone services. I had these things set up weeks in advance. My phone service was supposed to be switched on the day I moved. And the cable guy was supposed to show up between 3 and 5 that day. Neither thing happened.
I wanted to call the cable company to find out why the guy didn’t show up, but of course I had no phone. I was finally able to borrow my gf’s cell, and when I got through, I learned that the call had been cancelled. The operator couldn’t tell me who it was that cancelled it.
The phone company said that they made the switch, so they said that the landlord must have turned off some internal line. They wouldn’t come out and check it, they said to tell the landlord to turn it back on. The landlord said it was already on. It took days to convince the phone company to come out.
It was a week before I had those services back. At least I had electricity!
First time I moved, we got possession of the apartment early so scheduled the internet/cable/phone guy to show before I moved in. The second time I moved, the internet/cable/phone guy showed up before the movers finished. I will not tolerate not having internet immediately.
Not sure how this story, or tdn’s, makes people glad that they rent.
What happened to the OP sucks hard (I have two friends going through basement floodings right now), but at least they have control over what happens and are in the loop (with Verizon). If they were renters they’d still have a flooded kitchen, they would just have to wait for someone else to get around to feeling like doing something about it.
Good luck - trying to keep the outside water outside is harder than it sounds.
I’ll tell you. As a renter, I called the apartment complex office when anything like this happened. There was no chance I’d be called on to do any of the work myself, or that I’d have to figure out who it is you call for help with a clogged French drain. I just told the apartment complex office, and they figured out who to call and what to do.
Due to the internet problems, it’s harder to use my usual procedure for figuring out what to do in a situation where I have no idea what to do, which is to Google it.
There was also no chance I’d have to pay to get anything fixed, unless I had done something stupid and caused the damage myself. I wouldn’t have to care if the floors or walls might be damaged, unless the damage was likely to be enough to make the place uninhabitable.
Being in control is a two-edged sword. It means you have more control over what happens and when, yes, but it also means you have to make decisions about what’s going to happen and when.
Whether I rent or own has little bearing on cable. But in the case of something happening to the apartment itself, help is only a phone call away, and it’s free.
We got eight inches of heavy, wet snow late in the day.
After just a few feet, the snow blower, which had been repaired in January, totally gave up the ghost. So, the hell with it says we, by the time it finished snow it was almost dark so we’ll spend a while clearing the end of the driveway (the driveway is 1/8th of a mile long. it’s nice to be uphill when it floods, but less so in winter) and park there. The plan was to get rid of rest of the snow after the following day’s soaking rain storm.
we spent a significant amount of the evening learning that there is pretty much no way to get another snow thrower for less than 1K before September. For who knows what reason, Sears, who actually has them in stock still, refuses to ship them outside of Ohio. We got the run around trying to order from a couple of other places who listed them in stock, but weren’t really in stock when you tried to finalize the order, and of course no stores have them either.
it snowed another 2-3" over night. Then it began to drizzle.
when I woke up, the furnace, which also had been repaired in January, didn’t come on again! Jesus Christ, we just had it fixed! Fortunately, there was still a fair amount of wood left, so the fireplace would be able to keep the temperature bearable until the furnace repair guy could come the following morning.
it was my day off and I was the only one home, so I spent almost three hours in the rain clearing all the damn snow from the afternoon before, so the furnace guy could drive all the way up to the house the next day- something that could be necessary if there was a big enough problem that the furnace needed to be replaced.
later on, after I woke up from a much needed nap, we got the furnace working again ourselves. So…while it was nice to be warm, I ultimately spent three hours in the rain for an appointment we canceled.
God, I hate winter. It’s allegedly spring now, but considering we had a nice storm this week and it’s currently 30F out, you could fool me.
My brother moved into a new house at the start of the month. Since then, the microwave broke, the fridge has started making bad noises and his barbecue broke. The microwave and fridge came with the house and they were inspected, it’s just a case of HA HA RAIN ON YOUR PARADE. The new microwave came in, he managed to fix the barbecue and the fridge is still going.
In scarcely a year I had a backed up sewage line and a broken water main in the front yard. The guys who fixed the main jacked the price from $250 to $500 in the middle of the job. Now I’ve got a tree in the backyard that isn’t leafing and is probably dead so it will cost a bit to get that out.
This sort of thing happened with both of the houses we have bought now (both with good inspections). When you buy a 30/40 year old house, things are going to wear out, and that’s just life. We’re using a towel in the bottom of our current fridge to catch the unfixable leak; we’ve got buying a new one pencilled in for when we find a supersweet deal on one.
There are certainly pluses and minuses for renting and owning; at this stage of our lives, owning makes more sense for us than renting, even with the expenses.
Ironically, though we do have an old house, it’s the kitchen that’s causing us all the trouble right now. The kitchen that was added on circa 2005. I don’t know how old the fridge is, but my guess is “not very”.
I went to Target on Friday and got a bunch of cheap bath towels. We’ve been using towels to soak up the water that comes in, and I wanted to make sure we wouldn’t run out. If you liked the lack of rain this weekend, thank me (of course, since I bought more towels, it wouldn’t rain and make more water come in).
Don’t leave one towel in place to catch the water for too long. They grow mushrooms if you do. I know this, because we were dealing with a leaking toilet that way for a while. Mr. Neville put a nice beach towel in back of that toilet, and the mold literally shredded it :mad:
4 years ago we had “The Year of the Water Wells”. One pump went out, then the other pressure tank out, one broken water line then a broken controller.
2 years ago was “The Year of Bad Appliances”. First the washer. Then the replacement washer. Then the dryer. Then the freezer. Then the fridge. Then the washer again. You can also throw toaster and blender both in that junk heap.
I hate those years. :mad:
I hope yours gets better.
