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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

to ask what's the worst thing you've ever bought?

156 replies

y0rkier0se · 06/04/2017 19:02

I'm moving house next week, and i'm in the process of -procrastinating- packing. I found some ceramic zebras that I bought at an auction a couple of years back. They're two cream zebras, with grey and blue paint covering them, with crystals around the base. It's truly horrendous, the only possible justification for buying them was that from where I was sat in the large room you couldn't see quite how bad they were. And I really really wanted to use the paddle [grin and they're so bad that no-one else bidded. DP constantly jokes that they're going to get damaged in transit but as terrible as they are, I don't want to get rid as I laugh every time I see them. Anyone else got any 'seemed a good idea at the time' buys?

OP posts:
Original poster
y0rkier0se · 07/04/2017 23:01

We move on Wednesday, the zebras are packed now but when they're unpacked I'll post a pic. Cherry my hair is exactly same, only the hairdresser can get it to go curly nicely Envy

OP posts:
Original poster
y0rkier0se · 07/04/2017 23:01

Dark side Grin

OP posts:
LorraLorraLlama · 07/04/2017 23:03

My house. Its a pile of utter shite and the surveyeors report not worth the paper its written on.

boolifooli · 07/04/2017 23:07

A tread mill that became a clothes horse, a garden shredder that couldn't cope with anything chunkier than a straw, a carpet washer that left the carpets soaking wet, and still dirty.

ladyballs · 08/04/2017 07:27

Two marriage certificates.

Never again.

neonrainbow · 08/04/2017 08:50

A Vauxhall vectra. I told dh not to buy it!

MyGastIsFlabbered · 08/04/2017 09:17

When my hair was longer it was a nightmare, it was kinky rather than curly, except for one perfectly formed ringlet under my left ear. I tried everything to get it perfectly tousled but my hair was having none of it, so I'd spend hours straightening it. I went for a pixie cut in the end. I'm debating growing it again but don't know if I can be arsed going through the awkward growing out phase. I've heard good things about the Dyson hairdryer making for lovely straight hair.

Original poster
y0rkier0se · 08/04/2017 10:58

I really fancy a Dyson hairdryer Flabbered!

OP posts:
AgentCooper · 08/04/2017 11:07

This thread is amazing Grin Especially the Predator statue.

Mine was a pair of Fitflop Super Jelly sandals. The base was comfy as anything but the uppers were HUGE and not adjustable. I'd have needed to wear about 3 pairs of sport socks for them to fit comfortably. Wore them to Barcelona, thinking my feet would swell into them in the heat. By the end, my feet were so covered in weeping blisters and bloody cuts, and I was hobbling so much, that I looked like a biblical leper. £45 in the bin.

Crickeycrumbsblimey · 08/04/2017 11:17

Vauxhall astra - shocking company with terribly low standards.

Three gearboxes in a car with less than 15k

OhTheRoses · 08/04/2017 11:20

Rover 416i. Lovely car, beautiful to drive. Engine one blew when it was still in warranty. Engine two blew up after 20,000 miles (we got it replaced foc but only because DH is a lawyer). Did another 15,000 miles and sold it before engine three blew up.

It was car of the year in 1995. There is much history about the faulty engine.

DJBaggySmalls · 08/04/2017 11:29

ShowMePotatoSalad
Your eyeliner pen, did you know the eyeliner is encased in a plastic sheath and you have to twist that to expose the eyeliner? I love mine...

RiversrunWoodville · 08/04/2017 11:30

A spiralizer that you turn the handle to spiralize veg (yes very in MN I know) DH is a veg farmer and can hammer in fence posts with his bare hands and he struggles to spiralise a carrot without breaking a sweat

Ineedmorelemonpledge · 08/04/2017 11:37

A bottle of Ouzo at the duty free shop.

It only tastes ok in Greece.

An extending baking tray. The cake mixture just oozes out of the sides like the blob.

For some reason my Tesco value cake tins have never let me down, but this expensive piece of crap was useless. I ended up giving it away in a flea market!!

thenewaveragebear1983 · 08/04/2017 12:59

Love my robotic vacuum, it's a vileda and was only £60- best thing I ever bought!

Worst purchase- multiple pairs of Next flares off eBay that only after getting 3 different pairs that all didn't fit did I realise that obviously they are badly sized and/or shrink which is why people are ebaying them.
My Philips lumea- I just don't have the ability to remember to do something once a week. I need a daily schedule. It was bloody expensive and annoyingly I know it will work if I just put the effort in,

Generally dh and I aren't impulse purchasers. Except once dh bought 2 PlayStation 1s off eBay instead of a PlayStation 2. .

sodabreadjam · 08/04/2017 17:19

Austin Allegro - spent more time in the dealers being fixed than with us.

Rover Montego - greediest car ever. Needed a petrol tanker travelling behind us. Laterally it burned as much oil as petrol.

Bread maker - made bricks.

Juicer - around 40 years ago. Six oranges for two teaspoons of juice. Could have squeezed more with my bare hands. And cleaning it.......Grrrr

Most recently - AEG cordless vacuum. Was not cheap. Lasted 18 months and the battery died. New battery would have cost nearly as much as a new machine and would have had to be fitted in the factory. Thought it had done a reasonable job before it conked out but my new corded vacuum lifted kilos of dust and cat hair the first day in use.

clapintime · 08/04/2017 17:42

So many

A steam cleaner that steamed for 5 minutes, ran out of water then took 15 minutes to cool down before it could be refilled

A heavy bike with 3 gears suitable for cycling on the flat in Amsterdam, I live in a very hilly place

A 4' wooden giraffe in Kenya that had to wrapped and go on some special expensive part of the hold on the plane. DH told me at the time it was hideous so I now have to pretend it's very special to me.

A pineapple corer that loses 90% of the fruit

Hulder · 08/04/2017 17:46

Epilator. Was many many years ago so it cost £50, I didn't have £50 so I'd had to save for ages.

Did approx 2cm x 2cm before nearly passing out with the pain. Went back in its box for a year.

A friend then told me it didn't hurt much and the pain disappeared when you got used to it. Somehow this convinced me my first experience had been an unpleasant dream.

So I tried again. 2 seconds later I chucked the epilator in the bin.

BalloonSlayer · 08/04/2017 18:36

Agree with the TENS machine, although mine was only hired.

Feeling disconsolate and a failure already as labour was starting to hurt and TENS machine didn't seem to be doing much, tried to turn it up a notch, hand slipped and I turned it up to max, thing went ZZZZZZZZTTTT on my back, I yelped, this set off the biggest most painful contraction I had had to date, absolute agony, I wept and wailed and the bastarding thing went straight back in the box.

Water cooler/filter. Made a noise like a steelworks and filled the kitchen with an "aliens have landed" blue light, all to produce water that was 0.0000001 of a degree cooler than tapwater. I am not sure actually that all the heat it produced from creating the light and the bloody noise didn't make the water warmer.

Wine cooler fridge. Had to get a smaller fridge/freezer when we had our kitchen done so coughed up £££££££££££££££££ for an under the counter groovy looking glass-and-chrome thing like you see in wine bars. I don't even know how much it really cost - I didn't ask, I just wanted one. Once it arrived we discovered that it only cools to 11 Degrees C. What's the point of that? It also occasionally starts beeping and when you go over to see what's the matter it's flashing a light which says "too warm." Well do your fucking job then you useless contraption!

IonaNE · 08/04/2017 18:53

I love my epilator and use it under my arms and pubic area, too.
My sister has a robotic hoover - she says it's like a not-too-clever puppy that you have to rescue from places where it got stuck. Hers is programmed to hoover on Thursdays during the daytime and when she comes home from work she often has to rescue it from somewhere Smile.

My regretted purchases mostly relate to passing interests (for a few years it was recorders (pro ones, think of Early Music ensembles, but still) and other wind instruments; lots of books on things I'm no longer interested in. Though I did buy a hoover on Amazon for which it was impossible to find the weird-sized no-name bags it used...

topcat2014 · 08/04/2017 18:55

@help - I bought a new 1.0 Corsa in 2000, and had it for 15 years - it was slow, mind, but quite fun to drive.

Just shows - different strokes for different folks.

topcat2014 · 08/04/2017 19:04

My juicer has long since gone to the tip.
Breadmaker, however, I used today (after a gap of some time) - and loaf came out looking perfect!

GetAHaircutCarl · 08/04/2017 19:14

A Rangerover.

Brand new and cost a bomb. Barely a month went by when that bloody car didn't have a fault flashing up on the dash board.

It had a fancy adjustable steering wheel and one day I was at traffic lights when the wheel adjusted itself and lowered to my lap. Then locked.

I had to drive home with the steering wheel on my knees!

TulipsInAJug · 08/04/2017 19:34

Another one for a handheld hoover. It's a Vax. And it's rubbish, no suction at all.

Also, a breadmaker. Huge piece of kit but the bread it makes is disgusting. I'd get rid of it tomorrow if DH would agree (he likes to try it out occasionally).

helpimitchy · 08/04/2017 20:30

topcat I don't think it helped that my late husband's car was a Renault 25 V6 Turbo, so I was used to something a bit faster Grin