Oh Jet Dry....

The last of our problems with our new apartment was finally rectified yesterday.

We moved into our apartment on August 1st. Our family and friends helped us move all day long. I am so grateful for some of the people in our lives. When you need help, you find out who your real friends are. The move in process began around 9:30am. We cleaned, lugged items from our homes, unpacked, and set up our things in our new place. By 11:00 pm, I was exhausted and just wanted to take a shower and crawl into bed. (Our brand new mattress and box spring that was sitting on the floor without a frame, which was delivered on this day as well). I walked into the bathroom, turned the shower on, and of course nothing would go as planned. The shower head started spraying everywhere making it impossible to bathe in our shower. I was sweaty, tired and cranky. Ken being the amazing husband in training that he is, ran up to Walmart before they closed at midnight. He purchased a new shower head and a tool, came come, installed it, and I was in the shower before 1am. Well little did I know, that this would be the least of our problems with our apartment...and so begins the dishwasher saga.

The day we moved in, I tried to turn on the dishwasher in order to run all of our plates and cups through before I put them in the cabinets. I was having problems getting it to run, and figured it was nothing and I would figure it out the next day. Sure enough the next day rolls around and I try to use the dishwasher. When you push the big round button in, the cycle is supposed to start. Well I pushed the big round button and every time I would take my finger off the button it would shut off. I tried taping it down, and that didn't work. I then thought it would be the smartest idea in the world to just sit criss cross on the floor next to the dishwasher and hold the button down for a while to see what happens. Bad Idea. A word of advice...if something isn't working properly, you probably shouldn't force it. So..I'm sitting there holding in this button, and water begins to pour out the bottom of the dishwasher. I immediately let go of the button and cleaned up the water. When Ken opened the dishwasher, we learned that not only would it not stay on, the water would not drain out of it.

Two days go by, and we finally see our landlords and explain the problem with the dishwasher to them. Explaining things to our landlords, especially things of a complicated nature already, is very difficult because their English is very poor. So they assure us that they will go out and get us a new dishwasher right away. That day they went to P.C Richard's and purchased a brand new dishwasher for us, which would be delivered on August 7th. The dishwasher arrives and I can not wait to test it out...however P.C Richards requires a separate appointment for installation. I made the appointment for the following Saturday. Saturday the 14th. Now, in the meantime, I have the old dishwasher still attached, and the new dishwasher sitting in the box in the kitchen. (Our place is not that big, so accommodating a dishwasher in a box is a hassle). P.C. Richard's does not take away your old appliance unless it is disconnected already, so Ken disconnected the dishwasher and noticed that the electrical work behind it was done poorly. He figured it would be a problem. Now we jump to Saturday the 14th. P.C Richard's comes, takes one look at the electrical and says they won't touch it, due to liability reasons. They explained that the electrical was very unsafe. There was no ground wire, and wires were spliced everywhere and they were not in a junction box. They then proceed to explain that they do not take the old appliance away until the new one is completely installed. After all this, I STILL have two dishwashers sitting around.

We spoke to the landlords again, and they were having a ton of trouble understanding why the store couldn't install the appliance. I spoke to their son, and he translated all of the information for us. They were very understanding and said they would have an electrician look at it the following Saturday. Saturday the 21st.

Some time later (probably after getting an estimate from an electrician), the landlords decided they wanted to do the project themselves, but had no clue how. Chung (the husband) asked if Ken would go to home depot with him and show him what he needs to buy. I was definitely not waiting a whole week AGAIN for this dishwasher. Ken went to Lowe's by himself (with permission from Chung) got all the supplies, came home, fixed the electrical and installed our brand new dishwasher (that is currently working beautifully). Chung reimbursed Ken for all the supplies, and all is well now.

Hopefully, that is the end of fixing stuff that was already wrong with this place before we moved in. It's so frustrating renting because these problems could be fixed so much quicker if it were our own house. Ken knows how to do so much, but unfortunately you can't mess with a house when you don't own it, no one wants that liability. Someday, I will find all of this very comical...someday.