The universe speaks

You know how sometimes you are going along, all fine in your own world with your own plan and you think you have a grip on things then suddenly it all comes to a screeching halt?

*cue the record player needle scraping across the vinyl sound*

**if you don't have a clue what that means then you are just a baby-

 go get your iPod and take a nap while I rant**

Well that was me, exactly 20 days ago. I mean, we'd just come off the whole 'hole in the floor' thing, but otherwise I felt like things were moving along. We had a few things to wrap up upstairs and then we'd start working on the main floor.

***I feel the need to insert screech noise again***

Remember how I said that we would need to do something with the laundry closet but that was low priority? Well, that became high priority really fast when our dryer decided to take up flame throwing as a hobby. I tossed a load of darks into my 5 year old Maytag Neptune dryer and pushed the start button.

Bbbzzzzzzzztt!

Flames! Flames licking around the powdered detergent box and softener sheets. Shit! TurnPowerOff! Stick hand right over FLAMES and turn it OFF. O.F.F. 

Smoke, oh, lord and the popping and sizzling. Black thick smoke. Shit!

So after a terrifying 15 minutes and a frantic call to my husband (did you turn the breaker off? No,will do that right now!), the smoke cleared and I was still alive. The dryer, however, was not. He came home from work, removed the electrical panel and determined that the fire had indeed burnt itself out. Every window and door was propped open to air out the house. Of course we had a showing the next day. Of course.

Blue flames came shooting out the gap where the control panel meets the top of the dryer.

The fried electrical panel.

Melted.

Our Maytag Neptune washer had died a few months before in a dramatic fashion, but not nearly as bad as this. We replaced it with the cheap top loader that was at H2 and it proceeded to eat my clothes at every opportunity. As washers go, it has an identity crisis. It thinks it is a vacuum. You know, because it sucks.

I spent the remainder of the day researching washers and dryers. I'll share that segment of the story in another post. We did send the photos off to Maytag and I need to tell you that they seem to agree that this electrical fire should not have happened. They are buying the machine back from us (at about a third of the original cost) and have arranged with a local appliance store to bring us a check and pick it up so their safety department can investigate it. I have to say I'm good with this- they could have told us sorry, warranty has expired, you're out of luck. Instead they have taken this complaint seriously and are taking measures to rectify it.