Broken Down and Disrepaired

Ya know when you buy a new home and things are all shiny and bright with that look and feel of newness? Even though your house may be several years old, it still projects that glow of fresh, "I'm a new home owner" sparkle in your eyes? Then a few years go by and slowly crap starts to fail, things break, paint chips and you are just crossing your fingers and holding your breathe praying nothing else goes wrong causing you to dig deep in your wallet and fork over major bucks . . .

Sigh.

Such is the journey of home ownership.

I bought my little place back in the Fall of 2003 when home values were strong and interest rates were low. Ahhh, the good old days. How I miss them. For the most part, I've truly enjoyed my casa. Over the years, I've been able to make some upgrades and improvements. Put in a hard wood floor in the kitchen and dining area, painted, bought some new kitchen appliances, etc. Life was good. Well, as of late I've come to the conclusion that stuff is breaking down in a hurry. Mind you, my house is not that old. It was built in 1991. However, if you ask my father (who is a stickler for old world craftsmanship and the like), he would promptly tell you "they just don't make things like they used to."

Translation = shit is breaking down.

One of the first things I noticed was my front door leaking cold air. Now Minnesota tends to get a tad nippy in the winter so this became a problem. I could literally see daylight through the crack between my door and the doorframe. Since the thermostat was downstairs, this meant frigid air blew in causing the temperature to drop on the first floor, igniting the furnace on an almost continual basis, making the upstairs incredibly hot and jacking up the $$ on my gas bill. BAD. After several calls, emails, faxes to my townhome association, they finally sent some jack rabbits over to give my door a once over. The solution, it seemed, was weather stripping. Ah haaa. Another week later, the jack rabbits came back and put said weather stripping in. It sealed up the door nicely. Success!!!

Not so much.

The stripping is thick and freezing temps have caused it to stiffen making the door difficult to shut. This, in turn, causes challenges when trying to lock the door and turn the dead bolt. And now I have a door handle problem. WTF!?! I'm crabby.

Next you have the somewhat new refrigerator. A complete end to ice cube production occurred recently. The fridge, it seems, decided to go on strike. There were warning signs. A low, periodic thumping sound heralded an impending doom. Did we heed the warning? Nope. We just kept on with our lives taking for granted an endless supply of perfectly shaped, crystalized nuggets of icy goodness. Suddenly our teas, sodas and juices were sans cube. Sad, sad, day.

Mr. Oz got on the intertubes to get a repair guy over el pronto. One week and $365 later we, once again, have ice cubes. Apparently a little widget-ma-gidget broke in the motor so, ahh, there ya go. Bam. Cube Catastrophe.

Could it get any worse, you ask? Well, let me tell ya. A few months back the washing machine stopped working. A fresh load had been started, the wash cycle was complete, the draining was commencing when, kaplooeee, done. My clothes were left sitting in a soupy bath of yucky laundry water. No drainage people. No drainage. After investigating the apparatus -- let it be known I have absolutely no mechanical prowess whatsoever -- we picked up the bat phone and called in the repair crew. Much like the ice machine, the culprit was a plastic doo-hickey sensor thingy.

Are you seeing a pattern? Not only does crap break, but there also appears to be a commonality in that all problems, in some way, revolve around plastic parts and pieces. Weather stripping = plastic. Refrigerator widget-ma-gidget = plastic. Washing machine doo-hickey sensor thingy = plastic.

Plastic MUST BE ABOLISHED!!! It is evil. It wears out. It cracks, peels, succumbs to blight, pressure and locusts. When experts told me to stop drinking from those plastic water bottles, I should have instantly known that ALL plastic was devil's spawn hell bent on my destruction.

What is next? Will my plastic shampoo bottle fall and crack my bathtub? Will the plastic contact lenses I wear adhere to my eyeballs, scratch my corneas and cause blindness? When will the madness stop????

The U.N. inspectors were looking in the wrong place for those weapons of mass destruction. They should have visited my house and removed ALL the plastic. Plastic, I curse you.