Dehumidifier
I had fixated that my house was damp and now I know better.
However when I moved in I was convinced it had a really bad case of damp. I had viewed the place there was peeling wallpaper and it looked fungusy underneath. I now know that dozens of viewers took their toll, I know that the first viewers peeled off bits of wallpaper looking for damp, I know that this got progressively more pronounced, I know that the place had been empty for a year and sure it got a bit damp, but the peeling paper and the musty smell of a cold damp house with cold damp carpets gave a bit of a false impression.
I was researching what to do, I came up with French drains, cleaning out vents, dehumidifying, I even cross-examined a bunch of architects I had a meeting with. I was committed to the dampness and resolving it.
I liked the idea of the dehumidifier, a gadget you plugged in, left it in a room and then came back a day or so later to find a nice fresh dry room. It reminded me of an old horror movie I’d seen where they had a sort of ghost vacuum to clear out a haunted house – was it “House on the Haunted Hill??” – and I suppose it appealed to my inner goth.
Anyway I hunted around and found that although they were dozens of domestic models out there, the ones to go for were the beefy industrial models, eBac being one of the best, if not the best. I hunted around auction sites, I found some and missed lots of bargains. In the end I got desperate and started looking for bargains in eBay. My eBac was going to be sourced on eBay.
I picked out an auction that was pretty close in Newcastle; I went up to a good price and managed to get it. I paid on PayPal and was on my way off there and found that my PayPal payment had been returned. I checked my email and found one from the vendor saying that they were new to this and hadn’t realised that their PayPal payment would take up to 14 days to come through. They said that if it were fine with me then could I possibly pay by cash.
I knew then that I was going to get ripped off, I told my Mum I was going to be ripped off, however I needed the dehumidifier (I was obsessing by now) so I got money out of the bank and headed off to Newcastle to be ripped off.
The sat’ nav’ took me to a rather dodgy spot on the outskirts of Newcaslte – rip off meter rising.
The house and neighbourhood was somewhere I didn’t feel comfortable about leaving the car unattended – red lining now.
Anyway I ventured in and found that the house had been flooded and that the eBac parked in the corner of the room had probably been used to shift the dampness – feeling a bit more comfortable with my purchase now.
Thing was though, that despite the dampness, despite having it demonstrated – well switched on an off – I just felt totally uncomfortable with the whole situation. The vendors were pleasant enough but I felt intimidated, I felt like if I were to refuse payment I would be in trouble. The vendor was an old dodgy sort, skinny and over-the-top apologetic and fawning, he was handleable but his enormous son could have been a problem, though he was really a nice guy. I weighed up my options, payed the cash, loaded it into the car and headed for the hills.
Leaving it in my living room later, I switched it on and retreated to a safe distance and waited for it to squeeze out all the water and ghosts from the room. I returned the next day to find it’d not mananged to squeeze out a single drop of water from the room.
I’d been ripped off.
I got in touch with the vendor, they reassured me they’d help and then ignored all my email for the next few weeks. Well and truly ripped.
I got in touch with eBay and after weeks the vendor was stilling selling, I hadn’t squeezed a penny of compensation out of eBay as I’d not paid by PayPal (though I had and they’d cancelled my payment) and I still had my imaginary damp problem.
Luckily though… there has to be some luck in this story. Would you believe it but the eBac factory is in Bishop Auckland which is the nearest town to my house, some ten or so miles away, the eBac factory having a service desk too.
Took along my shagged eBac, had it assessed and after paying almost the same amount as I’d paid on eBay I had it back fully reconditioned and sucking water vapour.
Still despite my rattling on that the house wasn’t in fact damp, the eBac managed to remove a good couple of litres from each of the rooms I placed it in. The house though did really just need the musty carpets removed and a good warming through but the eBac although good at what it finally managed to achieve was perhaps an item I didn’t need, an item that cost me dearly in both money and pride.