What's the broken thing in your house that everyone just puts up with?

[Yebbie]

I'll start. We have a three legged Henry Hoover, and any time anyone hoovers you hear lots of banging and "fuck offs" as it falls over every 3 seconds. It's been like it for five years and rather than replacing it we all have just grown to accept our disabled Henry.

What's that broken thing in your house that everyone just accepts and lives with, despite how annoying it may be? I feel every family must have one

One shower door has lost it's rollers. It's a free standing shower with 2 sliding doors. You have to use the one that has both rollers. If you forget (which all of us do at least once a week) the whole fricking thing comes off. And you have to wrestle with a shower door to get it back on. Causes a racket (along with the swearing) and wakes everyone up Probably easy enough to fix but we forget until the next time.

Loving this thread!

Many, many things, too many to mention! But lightbulbs is one, half the main lights don't have working bulbs and some a so dim they are useless. We just live with it

Would be quicker with my house to list the things that work or don’t leak.

Cooker knob. Literally, my cooker is a knob.

Fine if you want it on fan oven- it's as simple as:

Switch on at wall
Set clock (any time will do but that's beside the point because I am who I am so it must be set correctly)
Set temperature
Cook.
Switch off at wall.

Want to use the grill?

Oh boy, gear yourself up, grab the pliers and pray to the saint of hitting the right spot that you get it right because once you've gone past it, it's going to take all of your faith, hope and charity that you don't have to start again. Hint- you'll always have to start again.

I no longer grill anything.

En-suite loo also doesn't work rn but that's fine because I never really liked you anyway.

All our taps are back to front so cold/hot never where you expect.
Some of our curtains are held up by pegs because when we moved in there were tracks and we had eyelet curtains. It is slightly irritating to open or close them but the rest of the time it isn't a problem so we just put up with it. Mainly because it would be cheaper to replace the tracks than the curtains but neither or us can face the awful job of putting up new curtain tracks.

I love this thread so much

My tribe!

Underfloor heating in en-suite hasn't worked since 2011. Except very occasionally it does, like at 3am every third Sunday when there's not an A in the month.

Security keypad on the back gate immediately stops working if there's a slight breeze, hint of thunder, spot of rain etc.

If it's rained, back door can only be opened if you have 'The Knowledge' on how to approach it.

In really heavy, prolonged rain water seeps up through the utility room floor. House is over 200 years old and built on sand with zero footings, so.....

Several radiators upstairs don't work. Never have.

DD2's triple wardrobe unit looks like it's been built by Salvador Dali, thanks to DH's craptitude with a screwdriver.

Loo in the family bathroom has the world's feeblest flush. It just ever so gently twirls your poo & paper around for a moment, and that's your lot. Family and friends know to use downstairs loo if they need to poo - the cistern is from the early 70s and uses approx. 3000 metric tonnes of water with each flush. If you shit in that loo, I swear your shit ends up off the coast of Brazil.

The kitchen mixer tap was always the wrong way round, but we got used to it. Finally got a plumber to swap it over and we had to re-learn. Then whole tap broke last month, so got new tap fitted......and it's the wrong way round. Again. It's seriously messing with our heads.

The dryer door. You have to push the metal door closer to one side to get it to close. It's been like that for about 7 months now.

Freezer door inside the fridge/ freezer fell out so now the fridge is quite cold. Cheese compartment broke so that's all now kept in tupperware.

One kitchen tap turns the wrong way. We're used to it but guests often surprise themselves with a gush of cold water.

Dishwasher that intermittently gives up. Brilliant for a few weeks, so I don't want to buy another, then fails to clean properly and actually makes dishes dirtier as they come out with a fine spray of baked on detrius! Then it seems to recover for no reason. It's in a grump this week and so frustrating!

@dementedma

This is such a comforting thread. People on MN always seem to have lovely houses and I feel that my flat is totally inadequate. Now I know differently!

On the surface our house looks really pretty, but underneath............ To add insult to injury DH actually owns a property development company. Yes, really. But it's a case of the cobbler's children having no shoes, his teams are always too busy refurbishing other bloody people's bloody houses!

He did actually get one of his guys to come one day last Winter. He arrived with a massive tool bag and asked for a list of jobs. I swear, it was one of the happiest days of my life 😊

I've not even gotten to the bottom of the FIRST PAGE of PPs and I'm in tears 🤣🤣

BUT I've got to ask... Does anyone else feel weird when other peoples things don't misbehave like yours does? Like, for me, our toilet seat slides of to the side EVERY. DAMN. TIME. and the lid doesn't always stay up... When I use someone elses loo I'm always waiting for the seat to slide and feels odd to sit on one that isn't trying to evict me or eat me!!

We had an electrician in to fix the landing land. Turns out it was a fake and there were no wires to it. We just stumble around in the dark every night 🤣

Of all the things in my house, the cold water part of the mixer tap not working is the most annoying. We're used to it, always keep bottled water in the fridge, but occasionally a visitor says can they grab a glass of water and I'll say yeah go for it .. then .. no, wait, it's in the fridge! Then I have to explain the bonkers tap 😂

The shower 🤣 it's been baths only for the past two years!

Washing machine. An hour’s cycle can take a morning. Had plumber out, said there was nothing wrong. Can’t be arsed to look into it again.

Flooring I pulled mine and my sons up in our bedrooms planned to get more, but something comes up all the time and wipes by floor fund out, literally hate it so much but unless win the lotto won't be happening anytime soon

@PotatoPie888

We also have a 4 slice toaster that only works for 2 slices. We have a kitchen tap that makes a loud hammering sound when you turn it off. It also sets off other taps.

We use all the slots on a four slice toaster, even for two slices, AB one day the CD next and so on. A lot of people use the same slots all the time and they wear out.

Wash hand basin in the bathroom wobbles a bit.
Side panel on the bath falls off sometimes, I wedge it back on.
The light in the oven doesn't work. I can't be fecked to replace the bulb.
A couple of panels have misted in the conservatory and have been for years.

On of the wall attached toilet roll holders came if years ago and never replaced. We just balence one on the radiator in front. Makes for a warm wipe 😁

Our shower takes aeons to get hot (only way to solve it would be to reroute all the piping in the house) but since reading about the benefits of cold water swimiming I've decided standing under an icy shower must be almost as beneficial!

Also the previous owner of this house was an enthusiastic but slightly incompetent DIY-er. We eventually replaced the handy cupboards in the hall that fell open and struck you on the shins, but never quite got round to doing anything about the built in bedroom wardrobe that only will accommodate clothes hangers at a slight slant. Our sons used to complain about them occasionally but they've as they've all grown up and left home now it doesn't seem worth replacing them...

Oh and daughters beige carpet is covered in spoldges if slime and pen stains from arts and crafts we just stick a rug over it all and will do for a few more years until she's out of that phase 😬 (alas rug getting stained now too but easier to wash and or replace)

@KurtWilde

I love this thread so much

Me too I don't feel so bad about the imperfections in my house now

@smaragda

The electrics! Can't out any other appliance on if you turn the kettle on or it blows the mains...that's what you get for having an electrical engineer for a husband! Everyone knows to ask-is anything on before switching on the kettle for a cuppa-or risk having to run outside and turn flip the mains fuse!

He sounds like my brother, also an electrical engineer, when they were younger it was common to see bare wires pushed into a socket because her couldn't be arsed to wire a plug! I broke off the top pin from the transformer on the outside lights when I was putting them away, I used a screwdriver to open the top gate and they still work, thanks bro. Years ago, when automatic washing machines needed plumbing in by a plumber a neighbour's husband, a plumber, never had time to do their's, she asked me round one morning watch her turn off the water and take a hacksaw to the copper piping under the sink, 'He'll have to plumb it in now before I can make his dinner!.

Ours was a Henry hoover plug 😅 My friends son threw the lead down the stairs and one of the prongs fell out the plug and we had to use the inside of a clipper lighter to put in the socket when we plugged it in…. I’m surprised none of us got electrocuted! In the end we snapped something into 2 sockets, 1 upstairs and 1 downstairs so it just worked.

That went on for about 3 years till we got a new Henry but had to replace the sockets 😂

Dishwasher, broke 2 yrs ago. Called and texted numerous blokes to fix it and they are busy. Will get back to my when they have free appointments.

Fuck it. I can do without