My wife and I have lived in our first home for about 16 months. Owning a home obviously is a big dream come true for us, and we are eternally grateful for the blessings and means God gives us to even be stewards of our own home.
A little more than one year in, and I've already learned both a new sense of pride one can have for his property, but also the frustrations that can come along with it.
A mere two weeks after moving in, we encountered our first major problem. Our garage door stopped working. My first fears already came true. I'm not a handyman in any sense, but I had to try and figure out what the problem might be. I eventually did, but it wasn't something I knew how to fix, so I called a repair guy to come take a look. He spent a couple hours fixing it up, and I spend almost $200 to pay for his time and service. Ugh, if this was how home-owning was going to be, I was going to be broke in no time.
Apparently that was nothing compared to what was coming.
Last May, we had our first long-lasting issue: Our refrigerator went out.
The fridge was one of the appliances the previous home owners were willing to leave behind for us. After going out one Friday night last May, we came home and heard a beeping sound from the fridge. We opened the doors and found that the temperature in the fridge was about 60 degrees, and the freezer temp was 35 degrees. Everything in the freezer was melted or thawed. A lot of food in the fridge was spoiled. We lost approximately $170 worth of groceries we bought the prior day. We quickly called a relative and raced over there to save what food we could, which wasn't much.
We spent a bunch of time on the phone that night with our realtor, then called our home warranty company, which was of no help. We had to wait until Monday before we finally got a hold of the warranty company, and they sent a guy out to fix the fridge a couple of days later. Thankfully school was out and JoyBeth was home for the summer, so neither of us had to take any days off of work. The repair guy seemingly fixed the fridge, and we were able to restock our fridge.
Two weeks later, it happened again. Thankfully JoyBeth was home this time, so she was able to salvage a lot of our food this time. But the temperatures were high as the fridge went out on us again. We called the warranty company again, and they eventually sent another repair guy (a different guy). He said that they were seeing a lot of issues with our brand of refrigerators, and he had to order a special part that could take up to four weeks to arrive. Of course, it was the full four weeks before he got that part and was able to fix the fridge again. In the meantime, we had to eat out a whole lot, and we mostly just drank water from the tap.
When they replaced the part, the fridge hummed along nicely the remaining summer months, so we figured we were in the clear.
Wrong.
It happened again in September. At this point, I wasn't settling for just another repair. I called them to let them know they needed to get us a new fridge. That demand fell on deaf ears, of course. The warranty company wasn't interested in the fact that we had repeated problems or that the repair guys completely failed at their job. They didn't care that we continually had groceries spoiled on us. All they cared about was spending as little money as possible to get by. To an extent, I understand. I'm sure a lot of people try scamming or manipulating insurance or warranty companies all the time. But clearly our warranty people weren't interested in quality work from their repair guys or satisfying their customers. They just wanted to find the cheapest method of solving their problem.
This time, they gave us a little compensation by reimbursing us to buy a new mini-fridge in case there were ever any issues again. It's as if they knew this would keep happening. A few weeks later, they sent a repair guy, but since JoyBeth was back to teaching, I had to take time off of work while he came and fixed the fridge. I tried my best to convince the guy that we just needed a new fridge, but he wouldn't listen. He analyzed the fridge and explained what the first two repair guys missed in an attempt to reassure me the fridge would be fixed for good this time.
Two months later, in November, the fridge went out yet again. I was done with it. I called the warranty people and demanded a new fridge.
What ensued was a month-long battle that tested a lot of my patience and persistence. I had to call them multiple times just to speak to a person high enough up their chain of command to actually be able to do something about it. But what did they do? They just sent their "best guy" to take a look. This guy told me the fourth different reason why it kept going out and why the first three guys might've missed the problem. I didn't care. I kindly told him that he needed to tell the warranty people that the fridge needed to be replaced. He didn't listen; instead, he ordered a part that would fix the fridge, and said he would be back when the part came in. I told him I couldn't keep doing this and I wanted a new fridge. Of course, the warranty people didn't care. They didn't respect my time. After the part came in, and after he"fixed it," and after his repair proved to fail again, and after I called the warranty company to complain again, what did I get? "We're sorry. We'll send someone to look at it."
During the holiday season, my brother-in-law hosts a "Christmas Vacation" watch party every year. He had a bunch of his friends over, and we all had a great time laughing about the movie. We had group conversations that covered a lot of topics as we chatted the night away. At one point, we were discussing insurance companies and warranty companies. Having dealt with those people for quite a while now, I decided to tell our story of the fridge. My brother-in-law, who works in that field quite a bit, completely understood my frustrations. He explained to me and the group that companies don't want to solve your problems. They basically play a game to see how little they need to spend before their customers eventually give up and move on. Those companies literally don't care about anything else. He threw some figures at us; something like more than 80% of people won't follow up with their insurance or warranty companies long enough before they have to spend the big bucks and actually help their customers (actually replacing a fridge, in my case).
Hearing that only further motivated me to finish what I started. I kept calling the warranty company. I kept chewing them out. I kept complaining to everyone I could complain to. I told them that sending another repair guy would not solve the issue. But my brother-in-law was right. The warranty company hadn't spent nearly the same amount of money by ordering parts and sending repair guys over and over as they would have spent simply by replacing our fridge. They didn't care that I had taken multiple days (partial days) off work, or that we lost hundreds of dollars worth of groceries, or that we had to go weeks without a working fridge.
As far as they were concerned, our home warranty only had a month left on it (the first year's worth of home warranty coverage was paid for when we first moved in), and they were content with just waiting it out.
I was not.
Finally, the day came. I called them every day early on in December. I enlisted our realtor to assist with the fight. I received a call from them, and the lady on the other line explained to me that they were going to be gracious and buy us a new fridge. Hallelujah!
Now the next battle would commence. We had to tell them everything about our fridge: The maker and model, the dimensions, the style, etc. They would find a fridge that was comparable in value. Ha! They sent us three fridges that weren't nearly as comparable before we finally landed on one that was pretty much what we wanted. They delivered to us a week or so later - just in time for Christmas! - and we finally had a functioning fridge again.
I did not renew our warranty with that company this past January.
(Look for Vol. 2 of 'The Joys and Perils of Home Ownership' in the coming days)