The Lawn Mower, The Television and The Freezer

It appears that the Hyde Sisters enjoy getting their hands a little dirty and will do most anything to get things done - because as Dara stated yesterday "It was Jeremy's fault." (Or Victor's).

So to Jennifer's battle with the Lawn mower and Dara's fallen electronic baby sister I give you the 10 month old freezer that took a dump!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

About 4 weeks ago Julian - our Schwan's delivery guy dropped off my pre-order of meals for the next two weeks. I instructed Evan and Aislyn to put the items in the freezer for me. Evan and Aislyn returned to the living room shortly stating that everything was put away.

The next day after work I went out to the garage to pull some items out of the freezer for dinner. To my shock the freezer door had been left open and my food was starting to thaw. I closed the door tight and then gave my children a severe tongue lashing.

Two days later I noticed that the alarm light was on - indicating that either the door was still open or that the temperature of the freezer was not at freezing point.

I examined the door and it was shut. I opened the door and the interior was not as cool as it should be...

So after several attempts to remedy the situation ourselves we contacted Lowe's to let them know that the inferior freezer they sold us last December destroyed about $500 worth of meat and frozen food and that our freezer was still under warranty and that someone better come out and take care of the situation.

The repair man came out and looked at the freezer and then explained to my mother-in-law that he could not perform any repairs because the label on the inside of the freezer provided a date of September 2007. He stated that it had been over a year since we purchased the freezer and unless we could provide a copy of the receipt showing that we had purchased it in December and not September we were out of luck.

The label states: Manufactured September 2007

This man is an idiot.

So Victor contacted Lowe's again asking them to help us secure a copy of the receipt which seems to have mysteriously disappeared from the warranty drawer - where the rest of the freezer paperwork is located.

Upon examining my bank statement I was able to provide the date of actual purchase to Lowe's so that they can provide a receipt.

In the meantime, we moved everything we could out of the freezer...

Today, I went out to the garage and checked the freezer to see if it decided to work - magically you know. If Lucy could enter a wardrobe and discover a frozen forest I should be able to discover a frozen country.

Well, I discovered something I hadn't noticed before. All the items on the bottom half of the freezer were still frozen. Strange...

I moved the shelves to see if anything was obstructing the air flow and discovered an iceberg. I began removing all the ice that I could see and discovered a vent on the bottom of the freezer. I removed all the ice from there. I checked the air flow at the top and still could not feel any cool air. I began removing shelves from the freezer. At one point I leaned against the back of the freezer and it was cooooooolllllllllllllldddddddddddddddd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

How odd. I noticed that there was a sealed panel screwed to the back of the freezer. I went to the kitchen and dug a phillips screwdriver out of the drawer. I unscrewed 15 screws; removed the seals and slipped the panel off - WOW!!!!!!!!!!! Another iceberg. This one had incased the cooling unit and had blocked the fan that draws the cool air up to the top and ultimately cools the whole freezer unit.

An hour and one half later the whole freezer has been de-iced with a spatula and a hair dryer. It is sparkling white and I have cold air blasting out at me!!!!!!!!!!!! Yeah! Eat your heart out you lousy repair man.

When Victor gets home the conversation will go something like: "Hey guess what I did today." "You have to come and check this out." "Hey the freezer magically works again." Aren't you proud of me?"

I have checked the freezer about a dozen times. It is colder than it was this morning. It will probably take a day before I decide that it is actually working. The alarm light is still on - so I think the repairman still needs to come out. We just won't tell him what I did... :)