A Week in the Life of a Remote Host

[Ann72]

Day 1: Guest at house 2 says the microwave is shooting out blue sparks. Call appliance people to come right down. Turns out the magnetron is dead. Whatever that is. Appliance guy orders part and says he'll be back.

Day 2: Guest at house 3 says the power's out. Guest at house 2 chimes in with same. Caretaker says the power is out all over the peninsula and goes right over to turn the generators on. Neither generator works. Call electrician to come down ASAP. Check in on guests. House 3 says they’re reading and enjoying the quiet. House 2 says they’ve gone out to lunch.

Day 3: Guest at house 1 checks in and says they want to have a party. Claims it's for an 80-year-old and 15 people who don't drink. Right.  I say okay, but if there’s extra cleaning, there will be a charge. She agrees but swears these people will clean up their own mess.  Right.

Day 4: Electrician reports that one generator’s control board was blown out by the same thing that blew out the power. The other generator is plagued by ants. Says he sprayed it with Raid and we need to do that every day.

Day 5: Caretaker asks if he should get more Raid.  I say no, I pay the exterminator a fortune for this.  No Raid.  Call exterminator.  He wants to know if the generator has a roof.  No, the generator doesn’t have a roof.  Exterminator says he can’t by law treat it for ants if it’s not in a structure.  Decide not to build a little house for the generator and order more Raid.

Day 6: Appliance guy comes back with the magnetron for the microwave at house 2.  But the power outage blew out the microwave control board too.  Thank you, Maine.  Repair would cost more than a new microwave.  I order a new microwave.

Day 7: Everyone checks out. 5-star reviews all around. Party-giver at house 1 refuses to pay additional $70 for cleaning, but writes that she plans to come back next year. I block her.

C’est la vie!

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Ann72 

You know where you went wrong, right?

Day 3: Guest at house 1 checks in and says they want to have a party. Claims it's for an 80-year-old and 15 people who don't drink. Right.

You needed to have blown their power supply too - just for the hell of it...

[Kelly149]

@Ann72 if I had a nickel for all the people who said "we can't wait to come back" and I thought "not enough money in the world....." 

Thank goodness for the caretaker!

[Susan151]

@Ann72 At the risk of suggesting you lock the barn door after the horses have been stolen, have you considered a whole house surge protector? This sits where the power comes into the house and will turn the power off if it senses a surge, protecting everything in the house. I have one in my house which turned out to be unnecessary. However, I also had my mother install one in her house and it has worked flawlessly.  [There is another bit that turns the generator on when the power goes out but I don't know how that part works.] She lives north of the White Mountains in a very inhospitable place with massive storms that come down the East-West valley regularly. 

The amazing part is this was cheap!

[Ann72]

@Susan151 But that is brilliant!  I'll look into it right away  It's not shutting the barn door - it's Maine, the grid is held together with twist ties, the power's going to go out again, you can count on it!

[Emilia42]

Haha everyone in Maine knows, @Ann72 , that we lose power at least once a month. The power company blames it on squirrels jumping into the transformers . . . . 

[Susan151]

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@Emilia42 wrote:

 @Ann72 , The power company blames it on squirrels jumping into the transformers . . . . 

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Hari Rodents!

[Sarah977]

@Ann72  Lots of brown-outs and power surges where I live. Burnt out the motherboard on my 5 year old, otherwise perfectly functioning washing machine. Now have surge bars on all appliances. But a whole house surge protector or voltage regulator (not sure what the dif between those is, maybe they're the same thing, but your electrician will know) is a better idea.