Wednesday, March 27, 2013

First World Problems?

Last night when I got home I discovered that my wheelie bin was missing a wheel. Hit by a car, dropped, who knows?


When I got inside, I discovered I had no electricity. I spoke to the electricity faults line, but they threatened me with a charge of $400-and-something if they came and looked at it and it turned out to be just a cut-off switch that had tripped. It was too dark to really see what the problem was, and I didn't have a spare $400-and-something to give them so I waited until I could look at it in daylight.

This morning, I could see why I had no electricity. Here's a picture that has been on my blog before:
And here's how the same thing looked this morning:
Can you see the difference?

The "point-of-attachment" was still attached, but the fuse inside it was gone (The paler circular thing inside the black box in the upper picture). Had the electricity company removed it because they thought the connection looked dangerous? If so, why hadn't they told me? Had the fuse just fallen out? There was no sign of it in the garden bed below. So I rang the "Faults and Emergencies" line again.

How many times do you think you could listen to, "Thank you for your patience. Your call is important to us. You will be connected to the first available fault consultant.", before you were ready to scream? This message plays every 30 seconds, and by the time I'd heard it 70 times I was doubting their sincerity about the importance of my call!

A little later (and seemingly much faster than my call was answered) there was a knock at my door and two very nice gentlemen not only gave me electricity again,
they re-attached the point-of-attachment!
Hooray! (They also suggested that someone who had had their electricity disconnected might have stolen the fuse to re-connect themselves. Who would think of such a thing?)

Oh, and the wheelie-bin was much easier. The council have a form on their website where you can enter all your details. In less than an hour you get an email telling you the bin will be repaired or replaced within three working days.

2 comments:

Chiara Z said...

Phew. Glad you got those things sorted. Especially the electricity.

jacaranda said...

Thank goodness you didn't have to pay the $400+ and with your persistence, you now have power. Everything seems to come in 3's. Fingers crossed nothing else happens.