Inconvenient Annoyances

Have you tried turning it off and then back on again?

Have you tried turning it off and then back on again?

WHAT? WHY DIDN'T ANYONE SUGGEST THAT?

That will be £50 for tech support.

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OMG, guess what is not working properly.   The new one. From January. I swear, I have not in over 50 years of doing laundry/owning my own machines, EVER had this much problem with washing machines going on the blink as I've had with the ones in this flat in the last three years!

I have been doing a lot of laundry - two or three loads every day this week, and a lot of drying of laundry - to pack. This morning I washed a towel and a pair of bluejeans, plus two small dish towels. After washing I ran them through a drying cycle. When the cycle was done I took the dish towels out and put the jeans and towel back in, as they were not dry enough. I started the drying cycle again. All the lights indicated it was doing a drying cycle.

I came back some time later to check to see how dry things were to find that the machine had filled with water and was sloshing the contents around as if I'd asked it to run a wash cycle. There was also an unpleasant smell in the kitchen, perhaps of a burning/overheated part.

I stopped the cycle and turned the machine off, then set it to "Spin/Drain" and started it back up again. It tried to fill with more water. I stopped the cycle and turned the machine off. I turned the electric off at the wall switch for the machine, waited, then turned it back on again. I tried to run the "Spin/Drain" again, but it only filled up with more water.

At that point I turned the machine off and phoned in on the landlord's trouble line, to be told after some time on hold on their outgoing recording to use the internet site. I went to the internet site to find a message that says that I had to phone it in. So I made another call. I get charged per minute, on hold for each call. 

I was able to open the door and had a basin under it to catch that part of the water that did not run back under the machine and across the floor, and siphoned the rest out with a hose. I have sopping wet jeans and a towel in similar circumstances hanging in the shower. I'm hoping they are not going to mildew before I can get them dried.

So after a while I went out and switched it on, back to "spin and drain" and got some spin action finally. It didn't seem to drain. So I thought I'd give it another test. Put it on the 30 minute "quick wash" cycle. Let that run for a while, then stopped it and (per the instructions in the manual) switched back over to spin/drain. It added more water. Right. Stopped that. Got the basin out and prepared to mop the floor again. Only now the door won't open at all. SO it's sitting there with water in it, but, thankfully, not my clothes. My next action was going to be to try to figure out how to check the filter. But there's no way I'm opening up the filter with all that water ready to come pouring out.

I'm done fighting with it. It can sit there full of water until hell freezes over or we move out, whichever is the case. The woman on the helpline said that since it was under warranty they'd put in a trouble ticket with the manufacturer, but if it wasn't a machine fault that we'd have to pay for the call out charge.  I fired off a note to the landlord's rep asking what all this was about US being responsible for repair charges? As in, noooo, we pay big rent for you to cover that sort of thing. I have heard nothing back.

If it's just that they can't get a regular repair guy out for a long time, that's fine. I've got what I need washed done, and the rest I can send to the Laundrette. (It'll come back cleaner anyway.) I am NOT paying for their cheap-ars* machine and it's maintenance. I am careful to not overload it. I don't wash a lot of fuzzy stuff in it. Don't use "color catchers" in it. If it clogs up with human hair or lint, that's a maintenance issue. As in, their maintenance guys should handle it.

Arrrrrghhhhhh!

OMG, guess what is not working properly.   The new one. From January. I swear, I have not in over 50 years of doing laundry/owning my own machines, EVER had this much problem with washing machines going on the blink as I've had with the ones in this flat in the last three years!

I have been doing a lot of laundry - two or three loads every day this week, and a lot of drying of laundry - to pack. This morning I washed a towel and a pair of bluejeans, plus two small dish towels. After washing I ran them through a drying cycle. When the cycle was done I took the dish towels out and put the jeans and towel back in, as they were not dry enough. I started the drying cycle again. All the lights indicated it was doing a drying cycle.

I came back some time later to check to see how dry things were to find that the machine had filled with water and was sloshing the contents around as if I'd asked it to run a wash cycle. There was also an unpleasant smell in the kitchen, perhaps of a burning/overheated part.

I stopped the cycle and turned the machine off, then set it to "Spin/Drain" and started it back up again. It tried to fill with more water. I stopped the cycle and turned the machine off. I turned the electric off at the wall switch for the machine, waited, then turned it back on again. I tried to run the "Spin/Drain" again, but it only filled up with more water.

At that point I turned the machine off and phoned in on the landlord's trouble line, to be told after some time on hold on their outgoing recording to use the internet site. I went to the internet site to find a message that says that I had to phone it in. So I made another call. I get charged per minute, on hold for each call. 

I was able to open the door and had a basin under it to catch that part of the water that did not run back under the machine and across the floor, and siphoned the rest out with a hose. I have sopping wet jeans and a towel in similar circumstances hanging in the shower. I'm hoping they are not going to mildew before I can get them dried.

So after a while I went out and switched it on, back to "spin and drain" and got some spin action finally. It didn't seem to drain. So I thought I'd give it another test. Put it on the 30 minute "quick wash" cycle. Let that run for a while, then stopped it and (per the instructions in the manual) switched back over to spin/drain. It added more water. Right. Stopped that. Got the basin out and prepared to mop the floor again. Only now the door won't open at all. SO it's sitting there with water in it, but, thankfully, not my clothes. My next action was going to be to try to figure out how to check the filter. But there's no way I'm opening up the filter with all that water ready to come pouring out.

I'm done fighting with it. It can sit there full of water until hell freezes over or we move out, whichever is the case. The woman on the helpline said that since it was under warranty they'd put in a trouble ticket with the manufacturer, but if it wasn't a machine fault that we'd have to pay for the call out charge.  I fired off a note to the landlord's rep asking what all this was about US being responsible for repair charges? As in, noooo, we pay big rent for you to cover that sort of thing. I have heard nothing back.

If it's just that they can't get a regular repair guy out for a long time, that's fine. I've got what I need washed done, and the rest I can send to the Laundrette. (It'll come back cleaner anyway.) I am NOT paying for their cheap-ars* machine and it's maintenance. I am careful to not overload it. I don't wash a lot of fuzzy stuff in it. Don't use "color catchers" in it. If it clogs up with human hair or lint, that's a maintenance issue. As in, their maintenance guys should handle it.

Arrrrrghhhhhh!

The nerve of that woman.

Ok, actually the Daughter picked up the call. In discussing this with her, she says she thinks it was the repair service that phoned, not the helpline. Either way, I ain't payin' nuthin. 

Will be interesting to see what the Letting Agent says when he gets my email.

Ok, actually the Daughter picked up the call. In discussing this with her, she says she thinks it was the repair service that phoned, not the helpline. Either way, I ain't payin' nuthin. 

Will be interesting to see what the Letting Agent says when he gets my email.

What brand is the machine?

Indesit.

Indesit.

I am not surprised.

Could be that the filter is clogged? But that would not explain the machine insisting on filling with water when it's supposed to be spinning and draining.

I don't care. I'll save up the laundry and send it to the Majestic. They do lovely work, and it comes back perfectly dry. Was going to have to send the sheets and blankets before the movers come, anyway.

I'm so over dealing with repairmen here.

I've had issues with our filter clogging thanks to kitty fur, but that just causes water to flood across the floor with our LG. I really miss just sticking a lint filter on the hose that dumps into a sink. Easy to see when it's full and in need of changing!

My IA for today is that I'm a klutz. I apparently injured the peroneal tendon in my foot instead of breaking it (but apparently it also may have also been broken, they ordered the MRI to confirm what's going on), and after 3 weeks in a walking boot it was at least finally not getting worse. I tripped over my own two feet and now I'm sitting here with ice on it because the pain was so severe my vision blacked out for a few seconds. I would really like to trade my body for a slightly less defective model!

Sorry to hear about your foot, Margo. Ouchies!

Day two of the washing-machine drama.  Yesterday I had emailed the Landlord and received an email back from them saying under no circumstances should I pay for a call-out, but refer the repair guys to them - I even have the cell number for the Landlord's rep. and am to give that to them as needed. I printed the email. Ok, ruffled feathers soothed.

Yesterday when I spoke with the repair people I told them to be sure to let whomever was coming out know that we do not have a smartphone, and that they need to leave a message with a callback number on the answering machine if we do not pick up the phone. We would phone them back ASAP.

So we went out to run errands for two hours today. I got back to an email from the Landlord's answering service saying that the repair people were unable to reach us by phone and will be out sometime tomorrow between 7:30am and 6:00pm. And that there might be a call-out charge if there was no fault with the machine. 

Uhhhh, no. 

Checked the answering machine. There was one message on it from the landlord's contracted service entity (not the manufacturer's warranty people) saying the same thing, and leaving a number to phone back. I phoned them back. She seemed perplexed, and said that the repair guys had tried to call and couldn't reach us. I told her that there was no other message on the answering machine, and no "missed call" alert, so they hadn't tried very hard. Obviously they didn't let it ring past 5 rings or the machine would tell me I'd missed the call.... I asked if she could give me a little more definite time other than 7:30am to 6:00pm? She said that they couldn't give us a three hour window because they couldn't text us that information. So they couldn't pick the damned phone up and dial it to let us know?

She then proceeded to say that there might be a call out charge if they had to show us how to use the machine - if we'd been putting too much laundry in, or not enough. The damned machine won't drain. I asked her how not putting enough laundry in the machine would make it not drain? And reiterated that any charges needed to be billed to the Landlord.

She kind of hemmed and hawed again.

What ever.

I told her that on no condition would I be paying anything. And that no washing machine worth it's name as a washing machine would break if you only ran a pair of jeans and two dish-towels in it. Not enough clothes in the drum making the machine fail. Uh, no, we are NOT going there. 

I am so, so tired of dealing with the repair people in this country. I end up speaking with people who are only marginally functionally literate. Or who seem to think that I must be, so they try to screw us over.  And if I even get one whiff of that "well, you are a foreigner and you live in a housing association flat so what do you expect" condescending crap out of them again, as we did rather blatantly the last time, I am going to tell them I pay in the freaking four figures to live here and that who the landlord is or why I choose to live here is really none of their damned business. And then lodge a complaint with the landlord and their bosses about them.

I am just "up to here" with this BS. And it's making it a hell of a lot easier to leave, I have to say. 

I am just "up to here" with this BS. And it's making it a hell of a lot easier to leave, I have to say. 

You found the silver lining. 

8:00am this morning the manufacturer's repair guy showed up. Very personable, very unlike the usual repair guys. He was here and gone in half an hour. Apparently he also had to "reprogram" the machine, as it's program was no longer working properly. There was no mention of charges for the call-out.

Turned out to be a mat of human hair and lint inside the pump that had jammed it. So, there's not going to be a way to keep all hair out of the machine. That would kind of indicate to me that the design of this machine is ~really~ iffy. I asked him if there would have been anything (short of shaving our heads) to stop this from having happened. Did I clean the filter incorrectly, or...?  He said no, he had to take the filter out to get to the pump, and the filter wasn't clogged.

Note to self, never purchase an Indesit.

I am very much looking forward to a nice, old-fashioned top-loading washing machine.