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Sabotaged by the Heating/Cooling Service ManSo a couple years ago, my best friend Julius and I went into business together. We bought 12 houses to rent to students and another five to fix up and rent out on game weekends. Thus far, things have gone smoothly. We have pretty agreeable tenants, all things considered, and the homes are in good shape, so there's usually little about which to worry. But the heater in one of the houses went on the fritz last weekend and the four jackasses that live there were drunk for the better part of a day, so no one noticed a problem until the house temperature dropped to about 55 degrees. They showed up at my front door shivering violently and clutching a handle of Jack.. "The house is cold! You have to help us! We'll freeze and die." Smart kids. I told them to drink a little more, called a heating/cooling place, and met the serviceman out there. Like most mechanics turn out to be, his name was Rick. Why are a lot of mechanics named Rick anyway? It's like the name Pam. Whose family doesn't have an Aunt Pam? Well... mine doesn't, actually, but you know what I mean. Anyway, Rick fiddled around for ten minutes and then tried to sell me a new part. The heater was five years old; I didn't see how it was due for new parts. And after listening to his spiel, my suspicions were confirmed -- having it would serve no bigger advantage than replacing a 5 year old nail with a clean, shiny one. Rick continued to make noise about improved efficiency, so I told him I'd get a second opinion before proceeding. He spent another five minutes on the furnace and left in a bit of a huff. So yesterday, the four showed up at my door again: "The house is going to explode!" "Yeah, the furnace is like a jet engine!" "It'll kill us." "You have to fix it right now!" I don't know what the hell they expected me to do. I'm not Schneider from One Day at a Time. There's no tool belt for me to throw on and just make everything okay. Besides, I wasn't keen on going to the house that, in their opinion, was teetering on the verge of explosion. Sure, they're a melodramatic, drunk bunch but still. In the interest of not being a slum lord, I went over anyway and found that they were right. I could hear the heater churning while still in the driveway. By the time I reached the basement, it was standing next to a 747... plus there were sparks. I turned everything off, took a look, and saw 8 or 9 random nuts and bolts on the ground beneath the unit. I don't know a lot about heater/a-c units.. actually, I don't know a thing.. but I know enough about parts and machinery to recognize that tightly fastened nuts and bolts don't work themselves completely loose over the course of three days, least of all when they are responsible for keeping the fan attached to the freaking engine. Foul play, anyone? I called Sawyer for the name of the business in hopes of getting a second opinion before taking further action and he gave me the wrong one - namely, the company that had just screwed me over. So I called them and they sent two service men over to check things out. They took one look at the unit and said, After they left, I called the one person in the world that's more vengeful than myself - my father. He gave me a list of threats to make and I hopped in my car to track down the fuck that caused this mess. While en route, I got a call -- "Ms. Warner, we checked our records and WE are the company that serviced your furnace. We understand what happened now, we want to make this work out for you." This just pissed me off more. Didn't they know I was on my way over to go ballistic?? I hung up on the man and kept driving. No one was going to take the wind out of my sails with an apologetic phone call! I finally got there, took out my contacts [harsh words are always more effective when I remove my fake irises] and marched inside. There I completely lost my head, delivering each threat with spiteful, litigious conviction. I'm kinda sad my dad wasn't there to see it... Fifteen minutes later, I had everything I could have wanted and more: a new furnace, free maintenance for the life of the unit, and the firing of Rick the service man. In exchange, I won't be suing them, calling news outlets, or contacting the police. I'm not really sure if anything criminal actually occurred (fraud? theft?) but I thew it out anyway. As it turns out, Rick sabotaged the thing, assuming that after a few hours of hearing it rumble, my renters would call me and I'd order his stupid part. He didn't bank on them being so oblivious to anything other than their liquor supply and Gears of War, that it would take three days for the issue to come to my attention. By that time, the unit was all but destroyed. Anyway, I'm not so much angry about this situation as I am confused. These guys don't work on commission and the part only cost $85. So it's not like this guy was going to make money or even raise the boss's eyebrows with a huge sale. What other motivations am I missing? No one benefits from him returning a week later to install a part that, for all intents and purposes, I don't need.  Posted at February 20, 2007 6:53 AM Permalink • Filed under: Personal |
Comments (18): Sabotaged by the Heating/Cooling Service Man
Anthony
February 20, 2007 9:28 AM
HAHA I dont know about his motivations. I'm just amazed that you continue to NOT be a slum lord :) Props to JJ for keeping you in line b/c the Flash I know is such a tight ass that she woulda bought those kids 5 space heaters and told them to tough it out!
Jared
February 20, 2007 10:33 AM
Fuck that. You should sue them anyway and see if you can get some cash out of it.
Koester
February 20, 2007 12:31 PM
The dude probably just wanted an excuse to come back and sleep with you. Either that or he was casing the house to rob it.
Brendan
February 20, 2007 1:42 PM
This kind of thing happens with car mechanics all the time but this is the first I ever heard of it happening with a damn heater, especially when the wind chill was below zero at the time. That's pretty fucked up.
if I were you, I'd still think about calling the paper at least to put this dickhead's name out there. He's gonna do it again and people oughta get a heads up.
nick tanner
February 20, 2007 2:32 PM
you should be careful flash. you got the guy fired and he probably knows where you live.
Jason Cunningham
February 20, 2007 5:03 PM
If i ever consider taking advice from this Brad dude, I hope somebody knocks me out.
Julius
February 20, 2007 5:34 PM
hey brad that shit was not cool of you
Silver
February 20, 2007 8:19 PM
seeing you up there with schneider made it clear .. you've gotta get a tool belt! who cares if you know what your'e doin? it'll be hysterical.
Joey Baker
February 20, 2007 9:12 PM
i would've called the cops. if there were sparks and loose parts, your tenants and anybody else near the unit when it was on would've been in serious danger. plus, he charged you for services he obviously didn't provide. even if the business tried to make amends, i'd see what the police had to say anyway. maybe they do something and maybe they don't but if they investigate, they could make the guy sweat a lot worse than the firing. he's probably had 18 jobs in the last year. that part is probably no thing to him.
Patton
February 20, 2007 11:04 PM
No way that's legal. There needs to be less athletes around here and more lawyers. does anybody have a clue about this?
brady
February 20, 2007 11:30 PM
not a lawyer but i did stay at a holiday inn express....
too cheesy??
Erik
February 20, 2007 11:41 PM
I have no idea of the legality of what occurred, but I will extend a giant thumbs up! :) Checking frauds and fuckfaced fuckers like Rick is eternally good times. I am betting that this turn of events ultimately ended up making your day, if not the week! lol
p.s. What's a furnace do? ;)
Tree
February 21, 2007 1:47 AM
Any rant/complaint/threat of violence should always end with "Do you know who I am? Do you have ANY fucking idea? WELL? Do you?" followed by you slapping to the floor anything they have in their hand.
Goldie
February 21, 2007 9:01 AM
who's Brad? What're you guys talkin about?
Goldie
February 21, 2007 9:09 AM
lol nice Brady. you should see if Holiday Inn Express will let you jump in their commercials after the combine.
Mark Harold
February 21, 2007 10:22 AM
The dude said that Flash should lay off the heat dude because he's used to helping out Morty Seinfeld all day instead of hot girls like her and then he posted a picture of her. Since I don't see his comment anymore, I'm thinkin she wasn't too happy about that. Too bad too. It was nice to look at.
Assman
February 21, 2007 10:50 AM
Something like that happened to me once in college when I rented a house during the summer with soem friends. Some guy came over and screwed up the central air, letting us bake because the landlord didn't like his original estimate.
We didn't.... um.... well... I'm pretty sure enough time has passed for me to say this without any legal trouble... we found him and beat the shit out of the guy. In our defense, we went to talk to him first, but he dared us to do it.
Flash
February 21, 2007 1:44 PM
Anthony: I actually thought about it but the service call cost less than the space heaters.
Silver: I bought a tool belt today and a Craftsman tool box. It might be time to trade my Jeep in for a Silverado.
Erik: the only thing that will make my week is if Charlie dies tonight on Lost.
Tree: Hopefully, they'll wrong me next week and I can try again.
Assman: If I run into this guy again, I'm gonna kick him in the fucking teeth. There's still room for vigilante justice in this world and I think it's time I started the movement! Feel free to join up early. I'm not collecting club dues yet :)