Crushed by the household appliance monster

Campbells: 0 Household Appliances: 3

What a way to start the week – Monday morning, up and at ‘em, ready to accomplish, forge ahead, feel fulfilled. 2 hours in, and we’re defeated, not narrowly either – comprehensively – lost souls wandering in a wasteland of failure.

First, the manual toilet. Determined to shake off Saturday’s ridicule when Michael turned on the tap to fill the toilet’s cistern, diagnosing a stuck “ball cock” as the cause of leakage, I mounted the ladder to peer in the cistern and unstick the ball cock. Couldn’t see – too dark in there and too close for my aging eyes. Down the step ladder, downstairs to get the torch (flashlight), and … “Can you help me figure out this vaporizer?”

Interrupt trip, wade through vaporizer (vacuum cleaner/steamer) manual, retrace steps to ready it for operation – it was lent to us by Michael & Lili to try and figure out how it works – and run into the same problem as Maria: red warning light flashing, no movement on the vacuum side. Check “Troubleshooting” section, a random collection of problems, some referencing numbered parts, others not, rendering the numbered diagram – a busy little chaos of alphas and numerics and lines – only partly decipherable. Try all documented possibilities – red warning light flashing. Try steamer instead of vacuum – red warning light flashing. Own internal red warning light – flashing, so give up and return to toilet with flashlight.

It’s a foreign (to me) flushing mechanism, and part of it seems rusted. Push disc where water seems to be scurrying through – no movement. Pull another just above it – no movement. So decide to induce some movement of my own – climb down the ladder and abandon this task.

On to the shower-head fitting which we bought to make our own shower operational, and reduce our total reliance on our neighbours, Al and Veronica. Cut open package, pull out instructions, arrange parts. There are only half a dozen, so this shouldn’t be difficult. Also only 4 steps to installation – piece of cake. First line of instructions refers to “adesivo” (adhesive) – search through the parts and the package, nothing like it. OK, keep going, keep going. Circular attachment bracket in step 2 of the instructions? Hmmm, can’t find that either. Abandon instructions, see if common sense can make the pieces we do have fit nicely together. Screws for the wall … but nothing to screw into the wall (besides the screws themselves). Shower bracket with holes to fit over something … but what? On top of it, one of said holes is off-center, which would make a blind fitting a natural “over-the-edge-tipper”, and could render far more consequential damage to the shower (as a result of internal red warning light flashing) than we can afford.

Abandon shower installation. It’s all over.

Time to go and chop some %@#& wood.