Appliance Mutiny

It seems that once a year, the appliances in my house decide to mutiny.  They have chosen this week.

My router died on Monday.  Not a good thing when I work from home and need my computers to do my job.

On Tuesday, I was making a pan of brownies when I noticed an odd glow from the oven.  The heating element/coil/hot thing on the bottom of the oven was glowing and sparking in one spot.  Even after turning off the oven, the light show continued and eventually burnt completely through a piece of the (whatever that thing is that gets hot).  I’m on a mad internet hunt for a replacement part.  We have a house full of relatives this week and not being able to use the oven ranks high in the near-catastrophe column.

Today, Wednesday, I was doing a load of laundry and the washer decided to act up again.  This is a sporadic problem so not entirely new this week.  The door (front-loading washer) doesn’t latch … or maybe it does latch but the washer just doesn’t think it’s latched … so the washer won’t start.  We have had the repair person here to fix the issue while the washer was still under warranty.  His “fix” was warrantied for 60 days.  On the 64th day, the problem reoccurred.  This time we ordered the supposedly faulty part from Sears Parts Direct and Mike replaced it .  It worked for a while and then began acting up again. 

Finally, we discovered that if the washer doesn’t lock, we just have to lift up the front of the washer slightly and then drop it.  Viola!  The door lock clicks and the laundry begins washing.  This is such a redneck fix but it is the only thing we’ve found that actually works.  Although I don’t think this is necessarily any more redneck than the first time the issue occurred and Mike broke the lock mechanism in his attempt to fix the problem.  His interim fix was to affix a neon orange ratchet strap around the washer to keep the door closed during the wash cycle.  Yes … that was definitely more redneck.