I hate that I have to add another chapter to what is becoming the ongoing washer/dryer debacle at our place. Sigh. Sigh. Several weeks ago our washer/dryer decided to continue drying until the end of time. In essence it cooked and burned two of our bath towels. Not okay. After that we contacted Wingrove Appliances to schedule a time when they could come and look at the machine. In the meantime I continued to wash and dry clothes while watching the machine carefully to make sure they weren't over-dried. After a week or so the repairman was able to come over and requested that I be there to answer any questions he might have. Note that after talking with them on the phone multiple times I realized that they thought we didn't understand how to use our machine properly. Thanks guys, I've been using this machine for over a year without problems - I'm sure the issue is me. Sigh. So I chatted with the repairman as he pulled the machine out of it's home in the kitchen while simultaneously knocking the box of laundry detergent on the floor. This scattered detergent all over but didn't seem to bother him. Great. During the conversation where we determined that the machine had a faulty switch he called me "mate" no fewer than twenty times. :) He pushed the machine back into place over the pile of spilled laundry detergent. I know, she'll be right.
Next, I explicitly asked if I could continue using the machine on settings that were not related to the faulty switch (as I had been doing with great success). He said no problem and would arrange to order the part and install it. Wonderful, right? That night when I got home from work I put a load in and started the machine same as always. About twenty minutes later it clicked off like it does at the end of the complete wash/dry cycle. Initially I was optimistic that if I turned the machine 'off' at the wall and restarted it that some miracle might happen and all would be well. The first task was to pull the machine out from it's cubby hole. This is not an issue except when it is full of water. Several minutes of struggling and sweating and walking it back and forth an inch at a time I was able to get to the switch on the wall behind the machine. Alas, that didn't work at all so I proceeded to scratch my head while reading the "Troubleshooting" section of the manual and trying various combinations of button pushes. But all of this was for naught and I was out of ideas. So I was faced with a front loading drum full of water and clothes. For some reason the door wasn't locked so I figured I should bite the bullet, open the door and deal with the water as best I could. It was this or wait for the repairman to come back and make a mess like he did the last time the machine decided to stop working. I WAS NOT going to do that again.
I began by piling all of our extra kitchen and bath towels around and under the front edge of the machine (no easy task with the extra water weight). The moment had arrived when I opened the door slowly and water began to pour out. I shut it quickly and readjusted some of the towels to make a moat of sorts to catch the deluge. My heart sunk as more and more water poured out. Then I took one of our clothes drying racks and wrestled it into our shower (stall not full bath surround) and creatively half set it up. I figured I would wring out the clothes as best I could and then leave all the stuff hanging in there. Each garment was sopping wet, of course, so I'd give it a cursory wring while still in the machine and they hop around the corner to wring it out in the bottom of the shower and hang on the drying rack. This took at least an hour and actually made me glad, for the first time ever, that our machine isn't any bigger than it is. More frustrated than ever I then set to work mopping up the water from the floor. This took another hour to make sure that I got all of it from around and under the machine as well as wringing out all the towels in the shower. After all this I still had a washer drum that was full of water so I grabbed the smallest Tupperware container we have and bailed water out into a larger container, filled and emptied it three times and mopped up the remaining water in the drum. SIGH. I can't tell you how annoyed I was after all of that. I pushed the machine, so much lighter now, back into place and had to sit down and take some deep breaths.
The next day I contacted Wingrove Appliances about this latest misadventure only to get voicemail and, imagine that, no response because it was Friday afternoon. Like many NZ businesses Wingrove Appliances isn't open on the weekends. I called again when Monday rolled around. In the meantime I requested the use of a machine in another unit so we could attempt to catch up on laundry yet again.
When I spoke to Wingrove Appliances on that Monday I was condescended to because they claimed that the repairman didn't tell me that I could use the machine. I was livid as I told them that if I had known that I couldn't use the machine I wouldn't have touched it. That is why I asked specifically about using while they were ordering the part.
This past week the part was replaced and I've been doing laundry ever since. So far so good. I relayed how poorly Wingrove Appliances had treated us to our property management and asked that they deal with them in future matters. OMG. I sincerely hope we are at the end of our issues with this machine! If I had my way it would be replaced (as it should be) and I would be allowed to chop it into a million pieces. All this drama for a machine that doesn't even do a very good job of cleaning clothes, towels and sheets. I'm dreaming of the day when we have a real washer and dryer (separate machines that work). I know, dream big, right?!
A bizarre aside in all of this was that the day when the machine was fixed we came home to find a jam smear on the kitchen counter. Neither of us did this - we left the kitchen clean before we went to school that morning. What's more is that we found a big dent in our kitchen trash can. So what do these things mean? My thought is that the repairman helped himself to a peanut and jam sandwich and, for some reason, he got really mad and kicked the trash can. Who are these people??
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