a bottle of wine please...

To commemorate our first maintenance call from our new tenants!!!

Yes!  Why is it that we ALWAYS get a first call within the first week of renting this Godforsaken house?!

Last time it was the lack of drainage and water backing up into the utility tub and bathtub because of a tree root.  That was an $1800 fix + a portion of the rent was refunded because she had to move out for a time while the repair was taking place.  Later it became an even more expensive fix, since the $1800 "fix" was not a permanent fix.

The first time we rented out the house, it was to my friend.  She moved in on a Friday and by Sunday she was calling us because a HUGE limb of one of the cottonwood trees fell between my neighbor's house and ours, totally and completely smashing the cute little picket fence we had between our properties and nearly falling on her oldest son while he cut the lawn.  YIPES!  That took a whole afternoon/evening to cut up the limb and then another evening to replace the fence.  I think that was around a $30 fix.

So now it's this set of tenants and the first week they are in the house.  This one at least, was an "easy" fix - right honey?

They had done a load of laundry.  Everything was fine, the washing machine worked fine.  The second load and the agitator no longer spun and the machine was making a grinding noise.  UGH!

We had just bought the washer and dryer set (matching...first time ever) from our neighbor in Romeo. She was moving to an apartment and no longer needed the machines.  Still, they were old and used.

Jerome checked online to see if there were any videos up there that showed how to troubleshoot a washer problem...and of course, there is!  He watched the video, practiced on our washer (since ours is also a Kenmore, only ours is a Series 70 and the one at the rental is a Series 80) and then we drove over to the rental.  Jerome took it all apart while we stood over him and talked and watched (his favorite).  He found that the coupling was broken and decided to take the gear and the motor to our house too.  He would make sure that the only thing that was broken was the coupling by replacing our gear and motor with theirs.

As expected, it was only the coupling that was broken.  Jerome went back over there last night to reassemble the washer, only using our coupling.  Everything worked fine.

When he got home, he ordered a new coupling for our washer; $13.

I'll be able to do laundry next weekend.  

We're so glad it was something small and cheap and easy enough to fix ourselves.  Hoping this will be the only call for a while.

Comments

Eric said…
repairclinic.com is a good place for parts and videos. They showed me how to fix my dryer and they're right in Canton.
baby sister said…
Yes, the first paragraph is about the 2nd tenants...the last tenants. Spent a ton of money while they were in the house and then a ton more when they moved out.

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