House of Disappointment and Rude Awakenings

My roomies and I are staying in the same house that we had last year.
(We usually rent several houses instead of a crapload of hotel rooms.)

This house, it is the epic fail.

On my first night here this year the doorbell was rung at about 2:30 AM...
I'm pretty sure it was one of our co-workers that were in one of the other houses in the neighborhood playing a little prank.
They ought to know better.
They've been warned now.

Last year there was a big note on the washing machine:
"Drain problems. Please open lid occasionally while machine drains so it does not overflow."

This year, the note was still in place...
So, with all the dough you got paid to rent your house for a week, you couldn't save $35.00 to have Roto-Rooter come out and snake your washing machine drain?
So... When you do a load of laundry, you need to listen for the spin cycle to start, drop what you're doing and run out to open the lid.

Personally, I'm not feeling an overwhelming need to keep the wash water from spilling on your floor, bud.

On a much more irritating note, we had a crew call for 6:45 AM on Monday, so we were figuring wheels-up at 6:30 and adjusted our wake up schedule accordingly.
My alarm was set for 5:30.

As Murphy would have it, at 4:45 AM we were awakened by a blaring alarm in the house. I stumbled out looking for smoke or fire, and not finding anything obvious I looked for the smoke detector (of which there are several) to reset.
There was one over my bedroom door... Nope not that one.
And it wasn't the one over Cockroach's door either.
SGK came out of her room with a glare that would have left lesser men a quivering basket case.
"Turn that damn noise off!"
"I'd love to, but I don't know which alarm is going off." I told her.
I even opened the attic access, thinking there might be a detector up there.
No joy.
Roach finally found the author of our discontent...
A carbon monoxide detector plugged into a wall socket in the hallway down at shin-level.
And it wouldn't reset.

Quickly reverting to problem-solving mode, I took the device and put in the crisper drawer in the 'fridge and tried to get back to sleep for a few more minutes.

No Joy.

There will be a nasty letter...

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Fast forward to Monday PM

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A rather nasty cold front moved through the southeast last night.
We were prepared for it... All our equipment at the site was buttoned up or battened down, secured or put away to avoid unnecessary damage.
We hit the sack early, since I was shorted that extra 45 minutes on the leading edge of the day, and we had the same 6:30 departure target.

At about 1:30 AM, an alarm started blaring in my room.
(My room is actually a home office with a rather uncomfortable (small) bed and a large desk covered with many Objets d'Tech...)
Of course, the power was out due to the storm.
So, blaring alarm, no lights, blindly groping for my bag to find my flashlight, so I can find the next item that will be placed in the crisper drawer...
I finally find my light and I start my search- and the offending item this time, a Radio Shack weather alert radio, tucked away behind the mountain of other crap...
And it has no controls on it. No off switch, no volume knob or button, battery operated.
What the hell kind of crap technology is this?
The alert tone finally ended and a NOAA weater warning started- Tornado warning for our area.
Goody.
One weather radio, in the crisper drawer.


This crap is starting to damage my calm...

I have revised my plan.
No nasty letter.

I'm getting a half a pound of shrimp from the Kroger and hiding them in strategically located places around the house.
Inside the curtain rods.
Behind the wine rack.
On the top of the kitchen cabinets.

And a note to Constant Readers in Augusta (...and you know who you are...)
Someone wants to be Mr. Funny Man and ring my doorbell tonight, that crisper drawer is gonna be mighty full.
And if you think I can't fit a 200lb comedian/network specialist in a crisper drawer, you don't know the power of an angry ogre with a Cuisinart.

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE