Worst service call ever.

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220/221

Senior Member
Location
AZ
I WORKED at this guys house last week. True story.

Picture a sweaty bearded guy @ 5'6" and 450 pounds wearing boxers)

His AC circuit breaker went bad on last Saturday and we got a call on Tuesday at noon as I was JUST about to head back to my vacation cabin in the cool mountains. It was 100 plus degrees in Phx and I figured, for $150 service call I could drive 20 minutes to the west side and fix his problem. From the address I KNEW it was a bad neighborhood (Maryvale) but, how bad could it be.....right?

Crap! The guy answered the door and said "Welcome to my world".

He's had no AC for 3 days and the smell of cat and dog urine came out the door and burned my eyes. ....! Well...at least the electrical panels in AZ are outside and I won't have to deal with it.......right?

Wrong. The panel is INSIDE. Crap! I take a deep breath outside and he leads me through a debris strewn living room with 4 kittens, 5 dogs and feces/urine everywhere. I end up in a laundry room that has 12" of dirty clothes on the floor and no lights. There is a door to the outside but there is a ton of crap stacked up against it both inside and out. To top it off, the washer and dryer are in front of the panel and stacked with more clothes.

At this point I am thinking of bailing out but I drove 20 minutes and the $150 was my only motivation, other than trying to be a good guy. It should have been a 10 minute repair under normal conditions but this was gonna hurt.

At first I just tried to be stealthy and hold my breath as to not offend him but I couldn't make the trip from laundry room to outside without passing out so I pulled my t shirt up over my face/nose for a shield.

So.....I'm sweating like..... something that sweats a lot, can't breathe, trying to keep my t shirt pulled over my mouth/nose, I have to hold a flashlight in my mouth, lean over a washing machine and replace a circuit breaker in a live panel that was crammed full of added on wiring (no disco outside.....I looked)and every time I went out to the truck to get tools or oxygen, the little yapper dogs would try to nip my heels and slim would yell at them. Crap!

Twenty minutes and 6 trips thru the house later I put the panel cover back on, wrote an invoice, collected a check and pulled away and drove as fast as I could with the windows down in the 100 degree heat trying to get the stench off me. I was sure I was crawling with parasites and I could smell the animal urine/feces all the way home. I threw my clothes straight into the washer, took a hot shower and soaked in the clorinated pool for a half hour.


Worst....job....ever. Not EVEN worth $150


2 pole 50 amp old style brown handle Cutler Hammer would not reset.
 
Sounds like a regular day, to me. Maybe I should move to AZ?

One tip... smear a little Vick's Vapo-Rub under your nose in these nasty houses and all you'll smell is menthol.
 
I probably would have bailed and said - "you know what" the $150. But one thing I would do, is have called the authorities to report this animal abuse. Sounds like the guy probably has a brain the size of a pea, and if he wants to subject himself to the squalor - but the cats and dogs shouldn't have to live like you describe. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an animal lover - but this dude sounds like a real scum bag.

Mdshunk - nice tip! I'll have to remember that one. Next trip to the store, a jar is getting stocked in to the truck.
 
bjp_ne_elec said:
Mdshunk - nice tip! I'll have to remember that one. Next trip to the store, a jar is getting stocked in to the truck.
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I've had the same little jar in the dash for years. I get a really bad headache from foul odors, so I had to do something. The Vick's mostly keeps me from getting a headache with the side benefit of not having to smell cat pee and dog crap.

220/221 should be a writer. That was a well written post.
 
I went to look at a service upgrade this afternoon. The customer opened the door and the smell of cat urine hit me in the face like a hammer.

Never will understand how people can live with that smell. And why doesn't a family member/friend bring it to the attention of the owner ?

I couldn't wait to walk out.
 
sparky 134 said:
I went to look at a service upgrade this afternoon. The customer opened the door and the smell of cat urine hit me in the face like a hammer.

Never will understand how people can live with that smell. And why doesn't a family member/friend bring it to the attention of the owner ?

I couldn't wait to walk out.
Click to expand...

did you wipe your shoe off before you went outside?
 
Lately we've been doing some work at a house similar to 220's nightmare but not as much squalor...but 3 dogs and the place reeks. If and when we go back I'm going to try the Vapo-rub trick.
 
I had one worse old woman who collected stray cats she had like 20 of them in this mobile home, what a stench. The first guy left told her he didn't have his mobile home tool with him.
 
Had one two weeks ago like this. Place was a total cess pool. Guy called latter to complain that the EMT running down his mold encrusted walls was ugly!!:smile:
 
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