14 replies to this topic

[Deesea]

I was headed out to the sticks to what would normaly be an easy battle with an old Fridge. All i had to do was install a new fan motor in a top freezer.  I pull up to the an old green house with overgrown weeds, and bushes, and just about everything that can be overgrown has been overgrown.  Up to the battlescarred doorway i crept... wary that at any turn i could be attacked by any fashion of crazed animal that redneck folk like this could have been keeping.  After waiting a few moments i tapped on the door.  When this woman opened the door I was assualted by such a foul odor that i actually stepped back(not kidding).  Inside this dungeon there was a plethera of Animal Boo-Boo(Crap) and Tee-Tee(piss).  The Crazy thing is that people would let another person that they dont know into this pit.  I tiptoed around the poop and what not to reach the fridge.  The woman left me on my own to attend to her screaming brood(Kids) that rampaged up stairs.  I was shaken, But decided to do my job as fast as possible.  You would think it would be downhill from here... You would be wrong.  She left meat in the freezer that had began to create what looked like a little bloody battlefield in its ends. When i pulled the back panel down...  there was still alot of ice.  Ohh I almost forgot there where about 100,000 insect eggs laid on every place the could be eggs laid on.  What was really bad was that i had to use my heat gun to melt the ice only to have the eggs start to explode under the heat.  This "home" was by far the most nasty place ive ever been

P.S. I actually watched a cat piss on the counter while i worked.

~shudders~

[nickfixit]

I've been in that situation my self. It is something to see how some people live.

Maybe we should start a "worse service call" thread.

Nick

[FatMan]

I have been in some bad one's but nothing even close to that, I think I would have pronounced that one DOA :poison:. Don't ever put your health at risk again, what you come in contact could be spread to other's and that's how epidemic's get started.

I know you feel sorry for people in these situations but do them a favor and call the health department (but that's just my opinion). But I'm sure there are other's here that will agree with me.

[Samurai Appliance Repair Man]

We have lots of houses like that around here, tucked in obscure parts of the boonies. I stopped going on calls like that after I went on one that finally broke me.

The water well at this house (if you can call it a house, more like a tar-paper shack) crapped out and they didn't have enough money to replace it (but they did have enough for a brand new Dodge 4x4 king cab in the driveway!). So there was no running water in the house. I was there to fix the dryer, which was in the bathroom, upstairs.

I walked into the bathroom and involuntarily wretched from the stench of decaying human feces. Big black shit flies were everywhere and the window to the outside was wide open, no screen. I walked across the bathroom to the window and looked down.

There were streaks of old shit running all down the side of the house and piled up on the ground underneath. I put my hand on the window sill so I could lean out and see better because I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. When I put my hand on the window sill, it landed in a dap of slippery shit-- apparently one of these two-legged animals didn't hang their ass out the window far enough for all the excrement to make it down the side of the house. I convulsed and a splat of bile came shooting out of my mouth.

So, there I was, gagging productively with human shit all over my left hand and no water with which to wash it off. I wiped off what I could, smearing it on the walls, grabbed my tool bag (with my right hand) and ran out of the house while, get this, the troglodytes were laughing at me!

I got into my van, wrapped my defiled hand in a shop rag and got to a gas station as fast as I could so I could disinfect my hand with gasoline and fire... Ok, I'm exaggerating about the fire part.

I got the last laugh, though. I reported the house to the town police. Their two pasty, fat little kids with slitty, piggy eyes, were put in foster homes, the parents were arrested for writing bad checks all over town and for stealing that brand new Dodge pickup truck, and the house was condemned by the town and leveled.

[kdog]

my condolences to the poor sap who buys the land!!

[exsearsguy]

I'll post my horror stories later,but if any of you can remember,were there any roaches in these houses?

[exsearsguy]

House number one. This is way back in 1980 when I still worked for Sears.I check my route sheets for the day. Something odd, a call at a house where the previous tech had ordered a part. A pump,part number 350367 as I recall.We carried these pumps on the truck but I really didn't think much about it. YET! I go thru the day finally get to this call. Walk in the front door and Mike Tyson punching me in the face couldn't have stunned me anymore. Half burnt out stove, grease an inch thick in the kitchen ,chickens walking around and I haven't even made it to THE LAUNDRY ROOM! I get to the back of the house and there it is. In all its glory! THE WASHING MACHINE. RIGHT BESIDE THE TOILET. WHICH HAS A GREAT BIG HOLE IN THE FLOOR IN FRONT OF IT. Fortunately, these customers weren't savages. Certainly not! They stood behind the hole and AIMED IN THE GENERAL DIRECTION OF THE TOILET! And washer!So,I get down on the floor and change the pump,without putting my back on the floor it takes me about an  hour to change when ordinarily it takes what? 20 maybe 30 minutes? The good news for me? At least I live in this town about 10 minutes away. I go straight to the house and shower and change clothes. Oh yeah,in case I forgot to mention it, I figured out why the previous tech ordered a part we carry. I'll go to house number two another day. I forgot to mention it, but there weren't any roaches in this house!

[jahjahbinks]

you guys are good but have you run into this , me and a helper when sears had helpers , went on a call and of all things in the house there was grandma (DEAD) in her medical bed in the living room so we said we would comeback another time ,and that pissed off the cust who wanted to wash today so we had to wait for the police and fire dept to leave so we could make the repair and guess what they did and left the body in the bed , ooh one more this is the first call i ever refused to run this house was so bad you could see the foul stinch coming from the house from the sidewalk about 40 ft at this point enough was enough i cancelled the call and they sent another tech and he did the samething (techs check in but they don`t check out)

[Dan Webster]

The worst house I ever went to had 22 chihuahua dogs in it, dog shit everywhere , all of them trying to nip at my ankle ,turns out one of them dogs was pissing on a new tv we had delivered earlier. The dog jumped up on top of the tv and pissed right in it while I was standing there, right in front of the cust, I told him to dry it out and hope for the best. I smelled like dog shit for 3 days!

[Keinokuorma]

Well, although I don't keep my surroundings at home very tidy and neat, I haven't got shit laying around, or domestic critters that are allowed to ruin things... In the twelvesome years I have been doing various repair etc. stuff (mostly freelancin') I haven't yet come close to any of these stories... my own record is by far this, and it may take some time to beat it. Although there was this farm/ranch/whatever where the farmer/rancher/whateverer had contracted with my employer (back then) to take care of their computer equipment...

OK, it was a hot summer day, I drove my car in the yard and was bringing in the laser toner cartridge that was called for... Farmlord forgot to tell me that family was away until 8 PM , NOBODY would be around before then... and that the dog was roaming the turf freely. I installed the cartridge, tested printer and took old cartridge with me for recycling... and leaving the shed I started walking towards my car. Well, it was then that the dog got track of me. He trotted down to me, baring his teeth, and followed me to the car, where he sat down between me and the car door, growling and staring me and the toner cartridge in turns, like "you're taking that nowhere". I called his master, and he said "Oops, we forgot to say... OK i'm sending my daughter but it will take a while."

GREAT, I thought, knowing nothing about the family as this was the first call to that place... So, it was a HOT day, and the shit and all was stinkin-a-dinkin high, and there were large shit flies flying around and crawling my hands and face, and I had no particular place to go but wait. Everytime I shook off a fly, the dog made gestures to lunge for my wrist. I had already dropped the cartidge, which no more seemed to be any sort of a priority to the dog. He was just interested in keeping me from leaving, or anything. I was growing thirsty, but I came into second thought of opening the door and reaching for the water bottle I had brought. So I waited, and put my faith in that the daughter would come soon and perhaps be pretty.

To my astonishment, she came in some 40 minutes that seemed like 40 days... driving their family truck. And she could not have been much older than fifteen (need to be 18 to drive legally). And no, she wasn't exactly ugly, althoug neither a hot package. Anyway, she kept the dog away so I could jump in the car, pleaded me not to tell anyone that she drove, and wished me a good evening. So I promised, grabbed the cartridge and left as quick as possible (It's OK to tell now as she must now be of age to drive). So far all was fine, I hadn't been bitten or anything, but halfway home anxiety struck me and I was shaking like hell... that day could have ended gravely (excuse the pun). 

Back in the office, I laid the cartridge to the recycle stack, and worte my resign application. The management were pricks anyway and gave me all the shit-ass-signments... that day topped it up for me in that business. The craphouse incident had already passed, and although it was filthier, this was enough as for the first time I felt my life was being threatened on the assignment. Luckily I'm not really scared of dogs mostly, not even of that dog then, but I knew better than trying my luck with him.

[azasadny]

We had "people" living in this craphole house across the street. The city finally foreclosed on them and is in the process of tearing down the house and selling the lot. They had every tou known to man (motorhome, boat, motorcycles, scooters, etc... and they spent at least $1000 on fireworks (rednecks and fireworks go together) and their cars were held together with "Kentucky chrome" (duct tape). They had a huge flatscreen TV (of course) and were all at least 50% over average body weight...

[Scottthewolf]

Be very aware of bedbugs in houses.  Do not touch anybody's dirty laundry. Make sure the customer removes their own laundry from the washer and dryer before you work on it if it's a filthy messy house like the ones you are talking about in this thread.

[appl.tech.29501]

I read somewhere that one of the deadliest strains of ecoli grows under the rims of washer tops ....I'll see if I can dig that up.

[Deesea]

Wow. I cant believe its been 4 years since i posted this, and its still the nastiest house ive Conquered. lol One came close.  There was no front door, and the pigs and goats and chickens came and went as they pleased.

m/(o.0)m/

[BrntToast]

i have my gag stories too...

one house i walked out of a second time..... they called my boss back after i refused service the first time, an even after cleaning i still deemed the fridge unsanitary

and high5 to our master for calling the authorities on his.... i have had to do the same thing one time

i pulled up to a house, on time and knocked... no answer(but i heard something)  knocked again and screamed hello

so a small child came to the door(about 5)... i say "can you tell your mom or dad i am here to fix the fridge"... child says "mom isn't home"... i say can you tell the babysitter to come to the door... child says "i'm here alone i wasn't supposed to answer the door"

i call the boss and tell him what happened and ask him to look up and call the number for child and family services, he asks why and i tell him and he calls himself and gives the address

i sit on the step and have the lil boy come out and share a bag of chips i had in the van

abaou 1/2 hour later mom rides up on a bicycle with a case of beer, pissed out of her mind and starts screaming at me as to why i am sitting with her child

so i reminded her she was late for her appointment to fix the fridge, and that she was early for her appointment for child and family services, (cause thay had not arrived yet), luckily at that moment a police car showed up on behalf of CFS and asked me the story ... they threw her in the car and said they would take over sitting with the lil boy till CFS arrived

i pray she never got that boy back