I wrote the following on January 7, 2009 under the title What Else Can Go Wrong.
Today we’ll take a break from our beach & rum talk and instead show you a list of t’ings that have gone awry in our house during the past year or so. A list that other island home-owners will definitely sympathize with.
- Upper deck is leaky. Not too horrible until you realize it’s leaking into the Tiki Bar. Easy to live with when it only leaks in one area and, let’s face it, it’s only water…
- Screen door falls off track. We bang it back in and move on with our lives.
- Clothes are getting caught in the dryer on the edge and coming out with black marks (last Spring). Fixed! Only lost a few items of clothes.
- Deck paint is peeling away. Hm. What to do, when if we have it painted it will only peel away again once someone slides the deck furniture around? At this point we’re living with it, and touching it up as we go.
- Dryer again (Nov.)! It’s warming up (yay!) but not turning (boo). Fixed!
- Screen door falls off track. We bang it back in and move on with our lives.
- Ice maker not making ice (two years ago). Not good when you consider that’s the ONE JOB IT HAS. Fixed after multiple, frustrating trips from ice-maker-fixer-guy.
- Washing machine croaks. Maybe. Just happened yesterday, it’s not turning – or something. Dude coming today. He rocks. Cross your fingers.
- Hammock falls to the deck (two years ago. Yes, there were people on it (New Yorkers. Of course.) but it was a matter of time as the Stands Up To Any Kind Of Weather hammock material pretty much disintegrated during year one. Oh, and the metal hooks rusted away. Bummer.
- Tiki bar flatscreen TV dead like the roach I saw on the ground yesterday. No lights, no clicks, no love. Nothing. Happened in Nov. Very depressing. TV replaced with a killer surge protector. We think the huge rains of Omar (and other storms) snuck in and took it out. Sneaky rain.
- Screen door falls off track. We bang it back in and move on with our lives.
- Bedroom flatscreen TV dead like the roach I saw on the ground yesterday. Happened within a week of finding out that bar TV was dead. REALLY???? TV replaced *sigh* with a killer surge protector*. The guy at Electronics Unlimited loves us. We never want to see him again 
*note…everything in this house is now protected with killer surge protectors. Down to my electric toothbrush (okay – that’s a lie, like I would use an electric toothbrush with WAPA’s staggering electric rates…)
- POOF! Main TV downstairs goes down with a crack and ‘white smoke seen outside!’ (from a witness). Happened yesterday. I struggle to hold Scott back from jumping over the deck. We try to figure out what happened and start unplugging/replugging things in. Drag a plug over from another socket and the minute we plug it in BZZ! everything on that socket goes down. ‘Everything’ includes a computer, hard drive, fax machine…you get the drift. Scott wanders back to the deck’s edge, but only because that’s the only place we get cellphone reception. Calls a buddy who brings over master electrician Kelly, they come over and figure out that the socket outside took in too much water (over three years) and fizzed out. Socket fixed, nothing lost. WOO!
- Ice maker empty (two weeks ago). Again, I hate to remind it, but making ice is pretty much it’s job. We turn it off. Turned it on again yesterday, today it’s about half full. Promising! Maybe it’s just tired.
- Screen door falls off track. We bang it back in and move on with our lives.
- Closet door falls off track. We applaud the universe for it’s creativity, force it all the way left and leave it there. We’ll fix it ‘later’.
- Bathroom shelf breaks (this week). We fix it. We rock.
- Whole house surge protector installed (this week)
- New water holding tank installed (this week)
- Scott’s now poor!
- Screen door falls off track. We bang it back in and move on with our lives.
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The following list contains items that were damaged during March of the past two years. March, coincidentally, also happens to be the time of the year when my family visits.
- Dish is cracked during washing.
- End of curtain rod falls off and lands on glass-topped bedroom side table. Yes, the glass breaks. Someone (cough-dad-cough) begs mom to cover it up and pretend ‘it was like that when we got here’.
- Screen door comes off track. In the screen door’s defense someone (cough-dad-cough) tried to walk through it.
- (I’m leaving this blank as A) there might be something we haven’t found yet and B) they are coming back this year…)
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Ouch.
- But let’s see…in the three years since that post we’ve replaced the outside TV at least four more times, the last time as recently as two weeks ago. Yes, it’s an outside tv. Yes, we get a lot of salt spray from the ocean. Yes, we realize that is most likely the problem. No, we’re not building a glass/plastic case for it. Walmart dot com has great prices on TV’s, and the shipping is actually very reasonable (they don’t ship bigger than 32 inch sets). Boom.
- TV in the spare bedroom had a funky picture, and not in the good way. Replaced. Walmart. Boom (again).
- Big screen TV in our great room was replaced last year as well. Some of the TV issues I can attribute to weather…but at this point it’s comical how many televisions we’ve replaced for our little place of paradise living. It should be noted that we pledge no alliance to one manufacturer over another. We just cross our fingers that if a TV is going to croak it does so during a good time of year. Thanksgiving week is a good time for TV death…the deals on Black Friday are pretty spectacular.
- Washer/dryer replaced with high efficiency models. We got a rebate back from the now-dead energy program. Sweetness…both the kick-ass cleaning machines and the rebate.
- Closet door has fallen off it’s track too many times to count. I’ve channeled my tool time and unscrewed the doors to reset them a handful of times. Sort of worked. So does opening/shutting them softly as if they were crafted from eggshells.
- Screen door screens replaced on three panels. One panel was the one my father tried to walk through. He’s more careful now.
- Deck paint still with blemishes as this story goes to press. Yes, there are many solutions for this…some permanent, some temporary. Blasting year-round sun, salt-spray and scrape-y furniture are not best friends of an outdoor deck. Stay tuned.
- Outside bistro table and bar chairs that were showing signs of weathering have been brought back to life with some TLC. If TLC were bottled I would totally buy some serious inventory of it. You can not have enough TLC in your life. I have room in the hallway closet to store some TLC. Of course I’d probably have it shipped in from Walmart as the price for TLC once it’s imported to an island would be quite pricey.
- I broke a wine glass two nights ago. It had nothing to do with salt spray. I’m just clumsy.
- The beautiful brown, glossy teak deck furniture we shipped down almost six years ago has now weathered to a smooth light grey. In the beginning we did oil it knowing that it needed oil as bad as WAPA needs a new plan. However we soon abandoned the oiling as it was messy, took too long, and was a battle we were quickly losing. So we just let left it be. The good news about teak is that it is amazingly durable and will last forever. (WAPA? Not so much)
- Cistern pump started to wheeze and whimper last year. We MacGyver’d it until it was clear it’s time was done. It’s been replaced.
The good news is the screen doors are behaving and staying in their tracks. The ice maker continues to make ice. The surge protectors continue to protect against surges. We have a new hammock outside that is still securely fastened.
I’ll revisit this post in another three years. Or after we replace another three tvs. Whichever comes first.
May the force be with you.