Adventures in Home Ownership

Please allow me a moment to bitch and moan.  Is that okay?  Okay.

It’s cold in southern California right now.  I know, compared to pretty much everywhere else north of the equator we are so so lucky and most of the time the weather here is amazing.  But for the past couple of weeks we have had considerably colder-than-normal weather, thanks to a cold front that came down from Alaska.  I don’t mind these things, in fact I like cold weather because it means snuggling up with hot chocolate and blankets.  What I also count on in this scenario is BEING ABLE TO TURN ON OUR F*@!ING HEATER!!!!!

We have lived in our home for about six months now, and of course our heater waited until this particularly cold snap to quit working.  We hired a contractor to come out and look at it, and he said that a part needed to be replaced.  It would cost us close to $400.  Boo.  We then realized maybe our home warranty would cover it, so we canceled the order for the part and ask the warranty company to send out another contractor.  (If only they would have let us use the same one….but I digress).

So the warranty company sends out this two-bit piece of shit contractor.  The guy looks at our heater and says there is nothing wrong with it.  I thought maybe somehow the first contractor’s tweaking had actually fixed things and thought yay! Our heater works again!  Only it didn’t.  A few days later it would not turn on.  We tried to call contractor #2 to come back, as he said he would if it stopped working again.  And no one would return my calls.  I kept leaving messages, day after day, only no one got back to me.  Nards!!

Eventually I managed to reach a person instead of an answering machine and the lady scheduled a new appointment for the guy to come back.  Only the day she scheduled, they were forecasting very heavy rain, and our heater is on the roof.  I begged her to schedule a different day but she said it was the only day they could do, and that if it was raining they’d have to cancel.  Well lo and behold, it was raining buckets so they had to cancel.  So we went this past weekend, the coldest weekend EVER in southern California (or at least it seemed like it) without heat.

Finally, they came back yesterday while I was at work.  When I got home I switched on our heater and it came on!! Miracle of miracles.  I thought he had finally fixed it.  Only this morning?  It won’t come on.  I called the contractor and they said that when they inspected the unit yesterday it was working fine, and they couldn’t find anything wrong with it.  What the CRAP?????

I just called the warranty company and told them that this contractor is useless and they need to send someone else.  They are going to do it.  Hallelujah.  At this rate our heater will be working just in time for balmy 80-degree late spring California weather.

Okay I promise not to rant anymore.  And yes I realize how lucky I am not to have this problem in Chicago or Antarctica or somewhere where you actually “need” a heater.  But if one more person tells me I shouldn’t complain about it being 58 degrees inside my house I am going to bop them on the head.

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