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Monday, October 28, 2019

3's

Since we came home from our vacation we have had the 3.

1. First it was wasps!  We had noticed wasps all summer hovering around the join between the sun room and the house.  When we came home from our vacation there were several wasps in the sun room.  Our neighbour came over and he thought they were behind a big cupboard we had in the corner.  DH and T, armed with cans of wasp killer, pulled the cupboard away from the wall and they all came swarming out!  Seemed like there were thousands of them, there were definitely a lot of them.  They both sprayed like mad, DH got stung once, T took a broom and smashed the hive, that was bigger than a football, and all the wasps lay dead.  What a mess. T brought his big shop-vac over and vacuumed everything up and we put the room back to normal.  Oh, they caulked all along the little gap first so there would be no more entry point.  

2. The fridge freezer went on the fritz!!  We have a side by side fridge freezer.  I hate the freezer side because it is so narrow.  One day I discovered there was ice on the floor of the freezer part.  We had had a similar situation with our big upright freezer.  We had a repairman come out and fix it.  About 6 months later it happened again.  I had watched the repairman really closely when he fixed it so I figured I could fix it myself if it happened again.  Of course, it happened again so I took it all apart, after refreshing my memory with a few YouTube videos.  Fixed it and it's been good for the last year.  So, I figured I could do the same thing with the side by side freezer.  With the upright I had tons of room to work in.  With the fridge freezer the freezer is about 12" wide.  Try getting your shoulders in there to reach all the screws at the back to take the panel off.  Not easy!  It took me about 2 hours to take it apart, do the fix and put it back together.  My back, neck, shoulders and knees were killing me. But I was quite happy to have fixed it.  Unfortunately it happened again!  No way was I going through fixing it myself again so we phoned the repairman.  He came, did exactly the same as I had done and put it back together.  That was a couple of weeks before we went away on vacation.  When we came back we had a repeat of ice on the bottom and frost over most of it.  Phoned the repairman again and he came out again.  He did the same repair and also dropped the element down.  The first repair was guaranteed for 30 days and, of course, it was now 33 days.  But they honoured the guarantee and there was no charge, phew!!  It's been 4 weeks since the repair and everything is still fine so hopefully it is finally fixed, touch wood!!

3. Having a great sleep until 2:30a.m. and we are woken by an alarm beeping!!  We thought it was the smoke detector in the hallway.  We have cathedral ceilings so there's no standing on a chair to get it down.  I had to go out to the garage and bring the ladder in.  DH goes up the ladder, no, it's not that alarm.  Okay, it must be the one downstairs in the furnace room.  Go down and check that one, no, not that one!  It must be the Carbon Monoxide detector, which is right outside our bedroom door. Looked at it and the screen says 'End'.  Apparently they have an eight year lifespan and that was the night it died.  Why it couldn't die during the day is beyond me!  Taking the battery out didn't stop the noise, DH had to actually cut the wires to stop the alarm.  Try going back to bed and getting back to sleep after all that!  Was not a great night.  Next day we went straight to Costco to get 2 new detectors because sure as anything the one downstairs will decide to die in the middle of the night when its time is up!!

Well, that's the three, so no more.  We're just complaining about the snow, cold, wind chill-20C but nothing we can do about that!!

7 comments:

  1. Hi Janice sounds like a bit of a nightmare you have had, lets hope all calms down now, we had wasps trying to get in the corners of the bungalow it was frightening, I would have been terrifyed finding a nest like that. Hope the freezer lasts. I must remind my husband to put a new smoke detector up in the kitchen, it died a few weeks back and I don't like being without one, we have one in the kitchen and one at the other end of the bungalow. x

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    1. The wasps seem to be around nearly every year. Never been this bad before though. Hope you get your smoke detector replaced soon!

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  2. That's very brave of your husband and neighbour to tackle the wasp's nest themselves. We had one years ago and called somebody out to deal with it.

    I've never heard of a side by side fridge freezer. Good of them to fix it under warranty even if it was 3 days over. Not so sure that would happen over here.

    Typical isn't it that the last alarm you checked was the one that needed replacing. That's the sort of thing that would happen to me.

    Fingers crossed you've had your 3 now. xx

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    1. Last year we had wasps under the shingles over one of the bay windows. DIL went up the ladder twice and sprayed but if you can't spray into the hive it's a waste of time. When we got the new roof shingles this summer the roofers said there was no sign of them!

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  3. We've discovered a wasp nest wrapped around the inside of our chimney. Fortunately we hadn't been lighting the fire or they may have come swarming out into the living room. As they are starting to die off we've decided to leave them and will then get someone into remove the nest as it's up in the loft space a devil to get to. They did well to tackle yours without getting stung more than they did. I think alarms are preprogrammed to decide to die in the middle of the night so that you will hear them die and remember to either change a battery or buy a new one. What a night you had. I hate it when your domestic appliances decided to go faulty at least it was now and not when you had stocked up for Christmas. Hope you're in for a quieter time of it now.

    Mx

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    1. Over the years we have had wasps nests in different places on our property. Usually I try to ignore them as I know they will die in the winter and the queen doesn't come back to the old nest. I just wish that she would relocate off our property!! This nest couldn't be ignored as we pass through the sun room several times a day and they were way too many in there for comfort!

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  4. Why is it that things always seem to happen in threes? I often wonder about that.

    God bless.

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