If I have to call Lowe's one more time...

So, this week has been a fury of phone calls to the builder, Lowe's, the subcontractor that installed the floors, and Frigidaire. It's been very frustrating to say the least, but I'm hoping that we've made some progress. To start off, the builder, sub contractor, flooring company, and Lowe's claim it's not their problem. That leaves Frigidaire. The fridge worked fine for the first few days we had it, so that leaves me to believe that Lowe's hooked it up correctly. Even when the freezer broke, the fridge portion was still working correctly. So it seems it must be a manufacturer problem. The delivery guy that picked up the broken fridge said he's seen problems with the Frigidaire compressors breaking--something about having to work too hard to cool down the fridge. He was the one that suggested we go after Frigidaire to fix the floors. After being transferred to many different numbers, I finally ended up at Frigidaire's liability department. I got a voice mail asking me to leave a message and someone would call back. I left a message and no one called. I continued to obsess and freak out about the floors. I called back and demanded to speak to a human being in the liabilities department. I was told that was impossible (What? Are there no human beings there?). The operators only have a number for the liabilities department voice mail. I told the woman I found it hard to believe that no one in the entire Frigidaire corporation knew how to speak to a human being in the liabilities department. I asked to speak to her manager. I was assured the manager would tell me the same thing. She finally offered to call the voice mail for me and leave a message on my behalf with the hopes that they would pay a bit more attention to it and call me sooner. I agreed and hung up, exhausted.

Mary from liabilities called me later that afternoon. We were cordial at first. That was, until she informed me that I had not followed proper procedure in dealing with this issue. I swear, dear reader, I am not making this up. She told me that I went about it all wrong because I did not have my FIVE DAY OLD VERY EXPENSIVE REFRIGERATOR serviced by their service company. Like a sane person who just spent ridiculous amounts of money on a brand new house and refrigerator, I returned the damn thing to the store when I found it broken days after purchase. As a matter of fact, I DID call the service company, but they couldn't send anyone out to the house for at least 2 days. I was afraid of the floors being ruined (little did I know, they already were), and also needed something to keep my food cold in. So I returned it. This was wrong. When I told dear Mary how ridiculous it was that her company expected me to wait until a service person could come look at the fridge, she told me that nonetheless, that is there protocol. I then berated her and her company for awhile. She informed me that she would look at my paperwork and review the case, but "could make no guarantees" since I'm a big idiot and did it all wrong according to them. I told her that I will give her the paperwork and call her again once I have everything in order, suggesting that she get someone in a higher level involved to review the circumstances of the case. We parted ways.

The snag here is that since I didn't leave a broken fridge leaking water on my new floors, then I don't have a service invoice and I can't prove it was manufacturer defect (Apparently they think Ted and I have a penchant for putting giant puddles on our floors and then getting big companies to pay for the damage).

Cue about a billion more phone calls to Lowe's. At last I was able to reach my boy Lyndell, who assured me that the fridge would be serviced by Lowe's, and if I just call Lisa in shipping and receiving, I can get a copy of that service invoice. A-ha! Take that Mary!

Lisa is going to be a doll and call me when I can come pick up a copy of the invoice, in about a week or so. In the meantime, I need to get two estimates (on company letterhead--Mary told me I can't just get a friend to give me an estimate. Thanks, Mar), color photos (please, I had those the day it happened), and wait for Frigidaire to send me the paperwork telling ME what paperwork I need to send THEM. There's the rub. Mary says that should take 7-10 business days, but because we had it out with one another, I'm expecting it to take longer.

Then we wait until Frigidaire reviews said paperwork and decides whether or not they are responsible. So before you go to bed tonight, say a little prayer for a manufacturer defect!

I love all of the hoops they make you jump through in the hopes of you just giving up and fixing the damage yourself. Well, they've got another thing coming if they think this little lady will be giving up anytime soon. I have a lot of Teddy (my late grandfather) and Geri (my mother) Baron in me, and I will not rest until I've jumped through every hoop they toss at me and come out victorious. A crusade against Frigidaire! I won't rest until I have unwarped floors!

In other news, we love our house! Pulling into the driveway at night with the little porch light on is the coolest thing. We still have a bit more unpacking to do and I have some painting plans for this weekend. We have our first overnight house guests coming next weekend, so we need to get everything in order by then. When I came home for lunch today (oh yeah, lunch at home every day is awesome) Ted was busy putting together the bar stools for the kitchen counter and they are adorable. The cats spend their days gazing out windows and lounging around. Yesterday I caught both of them standing at the back door just staring out into the yard. Too funny. We also set up our new treadmill the other night and it is SO. AWESOME. So convenient and it works great. All in all, the house process has been pretty smooth and definitely great. I'll be happy when I don't have to make phone calls to automated systems on a daily basis anymore, but other than that things are fine. As my sister-in-law Mindy said, someday we'll look back on this floor thing and laugh. We actually already are, since the whole thing is just so absurd.

Hopefully I'll have some more pictures in the next day or two of our progress.