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lazylaner

Anyone remember the thread about DH's disasters?

lazylaner
21 years ago

Quite a while back there was an uproariously funny thread about some of the havoc our beloved hubbies have wreaked, trying to fix things around the house.

I'm in the market for another side-splitting laugh and wondered if it got saved anywhere.

Comments (92)

  • goodtastenomoney
    21 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Not a disaster.. more of a "pay back".
    When we started dating my boyfriend and I would go to his parents house each Sunday to visit with his large family. Everyone brought some kind of dish and boyfriend always expected me to bring ours. This did not really sit well with me, he could have offered sometimes.
    Anyway, Boyfriend had recently purchased a home in Florida and wanted to be the first one in the swimming pool even though it was cold cold- March. So as he was getting out of the pool buck naked I took a full frontal picture of him.
    Took the picture to our local Kroger bakery and had it done on a huge sheet cake. (somehow they take the photo and add it to the cake so it looks exactly like the picture).
    Next Sunday comes we stop by the store to pick up our cake. I send him in to pay for and pick up the cake.
    As we pull into his parents driveway I tell him he better take a look into the cake box before we take it in.
    The look on his face was priceless!!!!
    He helped me out with the potluck treats after that.

  • jasonoski
    21 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Self admitted DIY DH and here is my recent story. Last night I was putting a new male 3 prong plug on the end of an extension cord my wonderful DW accidentally cut with the power hedge trimmer (lots of sparks, what a light show! DW was fine, just surprised). I successfully connected the proper wires according to instructions and was putting the final tightening twist on the last screw when I looked down and realized the other end of the chord also contained an identical 3 prong male end??? OH POOP! Looks like I will be returning to Home Depot tonight to get the correct female plug. What a waste of time...but lesson learned...check twice next time.

    If I had a nickel for every trip to Home Depot to return the wrong part and get the right part, I could pay a contractor to do the job for me. :(

  • Missy_in_OH
    21 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Before DH and I were married, he was stationed at Charleston AFB and DD and I went to visit him. While we were there he decided to put a black light on his dorm room wall to illuminate a flourescent wall hanging he had. The walls in the dorm room were concrete so trying to do it the "easy way" he decided to superglue the light to the wall. As he was looking down behind the light to make sure he had the glue where he wanted it, he leaned back only to discover that he had superglued his head to the wall!! DD and I have never laughed so much in our lives. I literally had to "cut" him loose. LOL. He will never ever live that one down!

  • liketolearn
    21 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    My DH is well known in my family for his "repairs".

    One year for Christmas my sister gave him a tool box filled with duct tape, masking tape, electrical tape (well you get the picture). I even have a picture of him when I caught him "fixing" the refrigerator door shelf with the packing tape gun (big sheepish grin on his face).

    My favorite was the time I asked him to take care of the wasp nest on the front of the house. I'm outside cleaning the trailer and all the sudden he's all out running around the house yelling (he looked like some crazy cartoon character). I figured the wasp were after him so I just shut the screen door (hey, them wasp stings hurt) and returned to my cleaning. Seconds later he's all out running back around the house, dragging the hose, and yelling "turn on the water, turn on the water, turn on the water". You can see where this is going can't you. Seems when the wasp spray didn't work he decided to "smoke them out" using his propane torch. Of course, the propane torch ignited the very flammable wasp spray running down the side of the house. Yes, I send him out to kill a wasp and he set the house on fire. On the bright side he was running so fast that the siding was only mildly damaged. Still laughing at this one.

  • MKrup
    21 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    That last story reminds of something that happened a few summers ago. One spring we started to notice a lot of yellow jackets around our back pattio, and after a while I noticed that they were all going into a crack in the brickwork recess that our dryer vent came out of from the basement. I told my wife that I found out where they were all coming from and that I was going to 'blast' them so keep our 3 year old daugheter in the house for a while. Once I made sure the sliding glass doors to the dinning room were closed, I walked around the side of the hosue to get the can of wasp spray from my workshop. As I'm on the side of the house, thru my daugter's open window I hear my wife tell my daugher "Sophie, come into the dining room and let's watch Daddy get stung by bees". I know she didn't say this because I was there, I'm sure she didn't even know were I was.

    Some people might not think that was funny, but I am practically cracking up just thinking about it 3 years later.

    By the way I DID NOT get stung.

    Mike K

  • Katie S
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Everyone with a great story: you can win big bucks over at BHG.com (Better Homes and Gardens) in their contest they are having right now-- whose husband had the biggest do-it-yourself diaster-- not sure what the actual name of the contest here but some of these are bound to win! I was going to enter, but my stories ( tilled up bulbs, ten nail holes for hanging one picture) are just not nearly as funny as these here!

    Here is a link that might be useful: Better Homes and Gardens Website

  • eliza_ann
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    About a month ago,dh was doing some repairs on a panneled section of our family room...did a great job,and I was very proud of him when i got home from work.Later that evening i heard a meow from our kitty,but couldn't find him.you guessed it ! Kitty had gotten inside the wall and fell asleep and dh had repaired the wall around him.That wall came down real fastI can tell you,We both had a good laugh once the crisis was over.Kitty was none theworse for the experience,thank God!

  • Caroline
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    My husband is a saint, but can be somewhat mindless.

    We have a huge front yard that was fully fenced, almost to the front ditch. We decided a smalled fenced area would look more welcoming, so we set some new posts closer to the house, and moved the 6' tall fence panels onto those. This left the original 6' concrete-set posts standing like Stonehenge.

    I told my husband I;d like to do a cottage garden enclosed by a picket fence when we could afford it.

    The next morning (Sunday), around 9 am, I found him in the front yeard looking sort of bothered. Some inspiration had struck him and he'd begun Skil-sawing the posts right down to ground level, leaving a half-Stonehenge arrangement and no way to put up the desired picket fence.

    He says he knew it was wrong but he couldn't stop.

    I couldn't see how he could do such a permanent thing without consulting his partner (me) or thinking about it for more than 12 hours! Especially as we had set each one of those blasted posts ourselves in near-freezing temparatures when we first moved here.

  • Katalina
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Eliza Ann, my kitty did the same thing! Our fridge was leaking to the point that we had to replace the flooring and the subfloor (it was going on for a long time and we didn't know it). Anyway, DH spent most of a day on this project and then rolled the fridge back in place when he finished. And then I couldn't find the cat. As I walked around looking for her, I heard a faint mewing coming from under the fridge. I ran around totally hyperventilating and begging my DH to hurry up and get her out of there. As soon as he tore up the floor and subfloor back out again, out popped the cat--but not from the floor! Instead, in the meantime, she found a hole in the foundation and was running around in the backyard. I was so happy to see her I ran outside and grabbed her and just hugged her. And all this with my baby granddaughter on my hip! My poor hubby was sitting on the floor surrounded by his now destroyed handiwork and had to do it all over again. Good thing he's an animal lover...

  • trekaren
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Kat,

    You almost made me spit my coffee out! What a funny, disastrous, story! LOL Your poor DH!

  • Lisa_in_Germany
    20 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    My DH would have put the cat in the new hole in the floor and then repaired it! LOL
    These stories are killing me.
    Lisa

  • cathyll
    19 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    My dh is a sweetheart and definitely a "keeper," but he comes out with some things that truly reveal his lack of knowledge about home ownership.
    His latest one was when we were discussing the drought a few years back. He said, "I just hope by fall and winter everything's okay." When I asked why, he said, "Well, are you forgetting that our heating system is hot water baseboard?" He had no idea that the water keeps circulating and poor guy thought every time the furnace came on, it brought fresh water through the pipes.

  • sistersunnie
    17 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I came home from work one Saturday afternoon to the plumbers, electricians and handyman's vehicles in the lane. Found all three plus my husband in my bathroom floor looking really perplexed. They had torn up the wall and part of the floor..... When asked what was wrong, they told me there was this strange rhymic noise in the wall and they couldnt figure it out. Afraid it was bad wiring or a loose pipe. I reach over and pick up my pager that was vibrating on the hard counter top, turned it off and the noise stopped! Funny thing was it was my husband paging me that set the whole thing off and it had been buzzing away just 2 feet from all their heads the whole time! Expensive lesson!

  • sue36
    17 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Before we were married, I was at DH's house for the weekend. We were doing steak tips for dinner, and they were ready to be put on the grill. His grill was difficult to light, so I asked him to do it. He was about to get in the shower, so he takes the tips and walks nekkid out onto the deck (middle of the woods, no one can see). He turns on the LP tank and lights the grill. Next thing I know, I hear a "phoot!" and a scream from him that sounds like a little girl. The hose from the tank to the grill was split and flames were shooting out everywhere. Of course, we were worried about the tank exploding. DH was bent over (keeping his privates as far from the flames as possible) trying to turn off the tank with a face cloth. There was no water hose out there, so I was running back and forth with coffee cups full off water trying to douse the flames enough so he could turn the knob a little. The tank got turned off and the fire went out. But I think he was mentally scarred from the incident. Now, whenever he lights a grill he sort of keeps his body (fully clothed mind you) away and seems ready to run. I cracks me up everytime I think about it.

  • robinwv
    17 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I loved this thread!

    Right after we got married we bought a mobile home and my husband, the computer nerd, installed a computerized thermostat. After spending most of the evening programing the thing, off to bed we went, only to wake to a house that was colder inside than the 32 degree winter morning outside. It was "supposed" to have been programed to start bringing the night temp (of 65 degrees) up to a comfortable 72 - it was 34 degrees! Off he goes to work, leaving me in the "ice box". I got the instruction book out and inside of 5 minutes (compared to his 3 hours the previous evening) I had the heat on and was starting to feel toasty. He gets home and asks who I got to fix the heat - ME, I tell him, waving the instructions at him! He still can't set the microwave clock after the power goes out and has never learned how to set the timer on ANY of our VCRs. Mr. Computer....can build a computer from left over, second hand parts, but don't ask him to do anything simple.

    As for myself, well, I've plumbed, put new faucets in, fixed toilets, painted, patched walls, set VCR's, etc., but gardening is a whole other tale. Six years ago we bought the home of our dreams. Now, neither one of us are gardeners (both previous city apartment dwellers) and here we buy this home whose gardens are on the National Audubon Society register for "natural back yards" and is a blue bird refuge! Big mistake! Neither of us know the weeds from the flowers (still don't - if I don't like where it is growing out it goes!). So we're grooming the yard - he is on the enormous lawn hog he insisted on buying and I'm walking around the yard trimming when I come across this giant 'plant' - I have no idea if it is an important plant or not so I am leaving it grow. Now it is taller than I am (at least 5' - I'm only 4'10"). My husband comes around the corner of the house and yells that is it is a weed - there are a whole crop of the same growing wild over the fence in the woods. So I hit it with the weedeater - and it just loses leaves but keeps on standing. So, this weed isn't going to beat me - I go get the hedge clippers. Now, this weed happens to be growing right were our electric meter is and the telephone box. I'm whacking away at the weed when this grey wire pops up - yep, I chopped through the telephone wire! Around the side of the house, firmly seated on his lawn hog, comes DH and sees me standing there holding the two ends of the wires. Of course, being a computer nerd, this is one thing he can fix - as I beg him to not tell anyone. First thing he does after splicing the wire is go in and call everyone we know - and I mean EVERYONE - even friends and relatives in other states and countries! I began to think he was going to try to get the story reported on CBS news by Dan Rather! One thing, just one time I screw up and he will never let me live it down! We now have a lawn service.

  • robinwv
    17 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Nuts! I forgot the best one: Our mobile home carpeting was mauve in color. We had two rambunctious dogs and one cat at the time. I had bought Rit Dye in Scarlet to re-new the color of my step son's bedroom drapes (sun faded and who can account for another's taste!) and put the pack of powdered dye on the washer to use on the weekend. My husband gets home before me and calls me at work in a panic - the cat (once white, now a lovely shade of pink) knocked the dye off the washer and my darling Rexie thought it was something good to eat and tears it open in my living room. My DH tells me there is a tiny red spot in the middle of the rug, what should he do? My answer was just get out the vacuum and give the area a good going over to get the powder up. I arrive home to be met by the same lovely pink cat (he was pink for weeks) and a happy dog with a pink muzzle and purple teeth, AND a HUGE RED stain right, smack dab in the middle of my living room! DH thought he would take the tiny red spot out and proceeds to scrub the area with Glory Rug Foam and once wet, well, you know what happened! Throw rugs became a valuable item! Simply could not do as he was instructed! I planned on vacuuming several times and daubing the tiny spot with bleach to fade it - but the best laid plans of mice and women..........

  • prettyphysicslady
    17 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Ex was building me a bookcase. Routered out slots for shelves, several layers of stain and poly with sanding between coats. Screws all counter sunk and covered.

    Wood glue to help stabilize it.

    But he was building it in our dining room on the wall-to-wall...

    Good thing I don't like wall-to-wall. The carpet had to be cut to remove glued book case.

  • graycern
    17 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I have one but it's not my husband that did it. I had a man in to install a gas fireplace (he was a contractor from the gas company). He had to turn tha gas off to install the fireplace and when he turned the gas back on he had to re-light the pilot light of our gas hot water heater. While I am upstairs and I hear a "sonic boom" from the basement. I am surprized it didn't blow the windows out it was so loud. While the gas man was up the stairs in 2 seconds flat (sans eyebrows and with a little more forehead showing). He tells me that I have a defective water heater and I better call the gas company (then he leaves!!!) I am freaking out and I call the gas company and they send someone right away. Everything with the water heater is fine, the guy just didn't re-light it properly. The man who came to check it out is laughing his a$$ off when I tell him about the missing eyebrows of the first guy. He found the gas tag on the fireplace and took down the guys name who installed it so he could tease him back at the office.

  • pjb999
    17 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    There are some pretty good stories in here, but....

    Let's not make it into a male-bashing exercise, ok? Personally I am pretty handy (but do make my share of mistakes) but why do we 'assume' that men/husbands will be 'handy' and take the mickey when they're not?

    A "DW" segment about cooking/cleaning disasters would be dismissed as sexist. A "disasters" segment is fine, but let's not make it a 'husband' one - like I said, I'm sure most would find a 'wife' one offensive.

    Sorry if I'm being a party pooper, but I don't like sexism either way.

  • esga
    17 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Those reversible drills! I was doing a closet project once when my drill suddenly "had no power"! So I went to the hardware store and bought another one - and guess what? After I messed up the first screw (first it goes in, then it has to come out), the new one didn't either! I was packing it up to take it back and REALLY tell someone off for the lousy quality of drills these days (I was pretty new to power tools, I had previously had a sort of egg beater drill where you turned a crank) when I started thinking about why I might be attracting so much bad drill karma, and suddenly remembered the reverse feature. Oh well, at least I only embarrassed myself privately.

    Did anyone listed to car talk on Saturday? A woman called in to get support convincing her genius MD/PhD husband to finally get an automatic. He kept forgetting to set the hand brake. He had recently parked it in neutral with no brake, and the car went flying through the air as he chased it crying "my briefcase! my briefcase!" I must admit I haven't done that yet, but it might be coming.

  • zanesmom
    17 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    My DH is handy... to an extent. I asked him to refill the windshield wiper fluid in my truck, but he'll have to go buy some cuz we're out. No problem, he does so, fills the reservoir. The next morning, I'm driving and using the wipers, hitting the button to squirt the windshield and it seems the liquid is a bit strange. It's not really cleaning at all, it's smearing badly. I've a bottle of H20, so I used that on the windshield, but it's still... strange. Turns out when he went to the store for the wiper solution, he didn't have his glasses. He bought transmission fluid.

    He calls me at work, "Were the upstairs lights working when you went to work this morning?"... says we've no power in the upstairs, he's currently taking the electrical panel apart cuz it's a bad breaker. I flip out, envisioning the entire house burning to the ground. Messing with electricity scares me :) So I tell my boss that I MUST leave and rush home. I convince him to stop (he's got the panel off, some wires are out, etc.) and I call a friend who's an electrician. He comes over: we've a short somewhere. The electrician goes over the entire house trying to find it, removing plug covers and light switch plates. He ends up in the attic: squirrels had gained access and chewed a good 10" of wiring. The breaker was fine.

    And lastly, (for now ;) DH uses the hose late last November to clean some stuff out in the backyard. Two months go by, we get our water bill. Huge. He'd forgotten to turn off the hose.

  • bbjdl
    17 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I am laughing myself silly. And loving my DH more than ever! But I do have a couple stories:

    Ex-DH and I were renting an apartment. HIS cats (I'm a dog person) messed on the floor. He decided to clean it, with guess what? Clorox Bleach. I now have a rented apartment with orange carpet that has white circles in it where he "cleaned it". Fast forward 3 years. New apartment, new brown carpet, new cat, same DH. You guessed it. Again I have a brown carpet with white cirles from the Clorox. Apparently you cannot teach some people a thing. Hence, the EX part of DH.

    2nd DH is way more handy. The man can do anything - build furniture, electrical, plumbing -ANYTHING. We are currently re-doing our kitchen. If I can dream it I can have it. As long as I don't get in the way. Last house he was building a master bedroom on the 2nd floor. He was using a 2x4 to pull up rotted subfloor. I was being the not so nice wife, having a fit about something that I don't remember now, DH got REAL mad. Put pressure on that 2x4 to pop the floor, slipped, hole came through the dining room ceiling. You guessed it, I took off running, and laughed for days. Lesson learned - do NOT tick off DH when he is working on your dream room.

    So I am not sexist let me say I have more disasters than you can imagine or I can write. Let's just say home improvement is not my strong suit, but dang can I fry a batch of chicken! Most everything I do DH has to complete or fix - so I just let him give direction and I follow orders!

  • dirt_yfingernails
    17 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    My DH is not handy about anything repair-related and readily admits it. A few months ago, our washer in the new house died so we replaced it with the washer from our old house. Seems a simple enough operation......

    The first hose came off perfectly fine, but when he went to take off the second, it broke off. Picture a gigantic gusher of water shooting into the air, soaking us and rapidly filling the basement. DH starts hysterically yelling to call a plumber until I reminded him it was Saturday evening and we'd be lucky to get one out by Monday. Still screaming, he asked what to do and I tell him to find the main valve to shut the water off. Couldn't find it, so more screaming. Since we have our own rural water system, I told him to shut off the electrical breaker to the pressure tank.

    He starts turning off the breakers, in his panic, one by one instead of reading to find out which one was the correct one. Soon, we are bathed in darkness with the gusher in full force and water nearly to our ankles. He screams to run upstairs and get the flashlight, so I scramble and bring it back down. He finally finds the tank's breaker and later the lights. But the gusher is still flowing because the tank still has pressure in it. He screams again what do we do? I said find the pressure tank cord and unplug it and he finally does. And the gusher finally stops. But the basement of our is full of water. What do we do?

    I called my 20 year old son who works at a hardware and has great mechanical aptitude. He says oh, that pipe is 3/4 inch galvanized, the valve is a such and such, don't worry, I'll bring home the right parts.

    He did and had it repaired in 5 minutes and brought home a Rug Doctor to clean up the water. What a kid. Hope he doesn't leave home anytime soon.

  • pris
    17 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    OMG---

    I'm emailing this entire thread to both my sisters. I haven't laughed so hard in years.

    I would post a few disaster instances but promised myself not to speak ill of the ex.

    Pat

  • cat_herder
    17 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Ask a silly question...

    DW and I were reading this thread, and I said "Good thing I've never done anything this silly." To which she replied, "What about blowing yourself up with the bees?"

    Damnit.

    So, here's the bees story:

    We lived on a ranch in far west Texas. We battled bee hives every day during the early spring as the bees tried to find a place to inhabit. One day it's on the fascia, next day it's in the attic, next day in the chimney. One cold morning, the bees decided to move into the roof-protruding stove-pipe from our wall-mounted gas heater. The heater was off, but the pilot light was lit. The bathroom below was FULL of bees (dozens) and the sound coming down the pipe was terrifying. Anyway, I - being the brilliant person that I am - got a D-Con room fogger, put on a hat and coat, braced myself, and went into the bathroom. Realizing that the bees were coming down the pipe, I crouched down in front of the heater, depressed the button on the fogger, and pointed the spray up the pipe. A few seconds later, that little voice in my head screamed "YOU ...are GOING... to DIE!!!" I looked down and saw green flame exploding toward me from where the spray had ignited on the pilot light. I launched myself backwards as huge green cloud of flame exploded JUST over my head. It blew the heater clean out of the wall, and took all the hair off my hand in the process. When DW came running in to investigate the explosion, I was laying on the foor, laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. She said it sounded like half the house had blown-up. Sure, I lost a few hairs, and the heater had to be replaced, but on the bright side, I incinerated a few hundred bees!

  • yborgal
    15 years ago

    bump

  • cearab
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    OMG: I just woke the dog and cat up with my laughter after reading this thread. Both of them raced their butts out of bed to see what the noise was! Toooooo many funny stories on this thread!

  • dockside_gw
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    DH was finishing off a room in our basement. He had boxed in an overhead waterpipe which led to the outside faucet. He finished off the edge where the two sides of the box met by nailing someting like quarter round onto the box, went to get his radio to listen to a game, came back, and water was squirting out of every nail hole. Seems he had hit the water pipe.

    He fixed it the easiest and quickest way he could think of. Turned off the water to that pipe and cut off the faucet outside. Problem solved, except that we needed a really long hose to reach from the faucet on the other side of the house.

    I often wonder if the subsequent owners of that house thought it was dumb to just have one faucet for the outside of that rather large house.

  • sherwoodva
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    These stories are just too good!

    My DH is quite handy, but not very energetic. If I want something done, I have to start it, and then get "stuck" so he has to finish it. That was how I got the basement finished - I tore off the old drywall (which had gotten wet).

    He does not like heights, though. He was working on the roof one day and doing a lot of pounding. I finally went out to find out why the "little" repair was taking so long. Turned out that he panicked and wanted me to hold the ladder. So he sat on the roof for an hour and banged for me to come out!

    When I was about 20, the trap under the kitchen sink rusted through - there was water all over the floor. Ex-DH was under the sink to figure out what to replace while I mopped up the floor. Once I was done, I dumped the bucket in the sink - all over his face! Boy, did he yell!

  • julu444
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    omg, I am lol at these. Gotta love 'em. My DH went to put a new door knob on the bathroom, not a hard job. I'd gone to the store & when I got home there he was, locked in the bathroom somehow, he'd gotten the lock to work but the doorknob didn't work.... Our oven element went out & he took a screw driver to remove it from the oven & forgot to turn the power off! Almost lost him that time.

  • yayagal
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Hahahahahahahahah I just read these all out loud to my husband. They were hilarious. I loved Monas.

  • cherylnsw
    15 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    "My DH is quite handy, but not very energetic. If I want something done, I have to start it, and then get "stuck" so he has to finish it. That was how I got the basement finished - I tore off the old drywall (which had gotten wet). "

    Colorcrazy, you took the words straight out of my mouth. My husband works as a handyman at an aged care facility so he is very handy but he rarely does any handywork at home because, he's done it all day at work. I threaten to start things all the time, today I put my threats into motion. After living without flyscreens, they were factory installed extremely tightly, after great difficulty removing them to clean the windows they were impossible to re-install unless resized. I started pulling them apart today. He will be finishing them up tomorrow. At last I will have a nice bugfree breeze through the house. After Christmas I'm going to knock a hole through our laundry wall to reveal a leaking pipe to the shower - which we stopped using a couple of years back due to said leak.

  • painteddragon
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    bump

  • yborgal
    13 years ago

    This thread IS funny and it deserved a new life. Thanks, painteddragon.

  • painteddragon
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Your very welcome.

  • yborgal
    13 years ago

    Bumping again, because this one makes me laugh!

  • GLM1960
    13 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    These are sooo funny. Help, I can't stop laughing!!!

  • judeNY_gw
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Any new stories?

  • boops2012
    10 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I consider myself pretty handy.Used to doing things myself as DH is currently hard at work studying and finishing his Masters degree. We had pulled out the old bath vanity to replace the sink and countertop. Placing the faucet and the stopper on before placing it back on the new vanity. Had the sink top on its side, giving the stopper a trial to make sure we put it together right. But for some reason, it would not go down all the way. 25 min. later and many dismantling and re-dos it came down to this-GRAVITY helps in seating the stopper properly.

  • airqual_guy
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I'm going to tell this one on myself.

    Years ago, my wife asked me if I could equip a couple of outlets with grounded receptacles, to help protect her computer in our rented house. I opened one up, observed the house was wired with conduit, and told her I could do it.
    I bought the grounded receptacles I needed, turned off the power, and made the switch. [Now please don't post telling me how foolish this was-I know that now.]
    This house was built in the 40s and had a very unique type of breaker panel, with permanent [non-removable] breakers. When I turned the power on, the breaker tripped, and would not reset without tripping every time. Eventually I gave up and called the landlord, and told him we had an electrical problem [but not why]. He said he'd come over with an electrician at dinnertime. I was resigned to having to confess my stupid actions.
    Thinking about it, it became obvious to me that I had crossed a wire and created a dead short. I looked again, found my error, and fixed it. Set the breaker: no problem.
    My wife said, "That's nice, but the landlord will be here any minute with the electrician. What are you gonna tell him?"
    I thought a second, and reached out and tripped the breaker off. "We're going to be completely mystified why it's working right now", I replied.
    The first thing the electrician did was rap the panel hard several times with a big screwdriver. He then set the breaker, and of course it worked fine. He said, "Sometimes that's all it takes with these old things."
    My wife and I both said, "Wow! That's great! You're a genius!"

  • airqual_guy
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Here’s another one that had me laughing at myself.
    A few years back while remodeling a house, I was repeatedly annoyed by a mysterious noise. Whenever it was really quiet, as when I was painting alone in the place, I would hear a distinct “ping!” off in some other part of the house, every 45 seconds or so. Sounded a lot like a slow drip off a shower head, or something like that, but I could never find the source. It drove me crazy.
    Finally one evening I started hearing it again, and decided I was not leaving for the evening until I had tracked it down. Every time I would think I had it localized in a particular room, the next ping would sound like it was off somewhere else. But I persisted and eventually determined it had to be coming from somewhere in or near the main bathroom.
    Standing in the middle of the room, waiting patiently, changing position slightly every time I heard the sound, I decided it was coming from under the vanity, so I opened the door and stuck my head under the sink, waiting for the next ping.
    When it came, it was startlingly loud, and not coming from the plumbing against the wall where I expected, but from a side shelf, right next to my ear. I turned my head to look, and there was a stack of old smoke alarms that I had removed from the house, when I replaced them with new ones.
    These were hardwired units, but had battery back-up, and sure enough one of them still had a battery in it, faithfully beeping periodically to let me know that its main 110V power had failed.

  • toomuchglass
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    This very topic is what led me into joining the GW !!!
    I stumbled upon it , started reading and laughed for hours ! Anybody that can screw things up and still laugh --- deserves 5 stars in my book !!!!!

  • susie53_gw
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    My hubby is a pretty handy guy except with his tools. According to him he always knows where he left them. Well, we were putting in a new kitchen when his good hammer disappeared. At the time I babysat and he thought one of the kids had taken it off somewhere. We looked everywhere. No hammer. Well, our daughter was going to do the painting for us. Finally several weeks later she came to paint. Guess where the hammer was. Yep, on top of the newly hung cabinet!! If the darn hammer wouldn't have been so heavy I would have worn it around my neck like a necklace for when he came in from work!!

    Another time he was having a new barn built. I told him to make it as big as he wanted. After taking all his measurements he called the guy to start building. The barn has passthru doors. He has a big pickup and one of the big hauler trailers. His goal was to be able to pull in when coming in from down south late and close both doors. Well, he was 6" short.. It was so hard not to say anything but I was a good wife and said nothing. To this day he has never mentioned it...

  • pprioroh
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    My wife has a beautiful garden with all kinds of lilies and hosta and many other types of flowers which I have no idea. She wins contests for our yard and we've spent a lot of money with irrigation, truckloads of mulch delivered by semi, trips far and wide to various garden stores to buy the elusive flowers...

    I say all that to make the point that our yard is her passion and she loves to garden.

    A couple years ago she went on a vacation with a girlfriend for a week or so. She left me in charge (mistake #1). I was given strict instructions on running the irrigation (we hadn't yet installed our final leg of irrigation that summer and it was hot and dry).

    Oh, and we have a real deer problem - they will eat her garden down to the ground if we don't spray the garden at least once a week with some "deer-away" stuff that smells like two month old horse urine.

    Soooo... she gave me instructions to spray all the flowers with the nasty urine smelling stuff she had kindly pre-mixed for me in the hand-pumped sprayer in the garage.

    Well I did my duties just as instructed, watered, and on the allotted day spent probably 30 minutes spraying the deer repellant onto all the flower beds.

    When I was done I brought the sprayer back into the garage and suddenly realized I hadn't smelled that horrible smell as I was spraying all the flowers. I then noticed that there were TWO sprayers in the garage. Hmm, i thought. I opened up the second one and PHEW what a smell - well that one is clearly deer repellant. So what I had I just sprayed all over the entire garden?

    Yes, you guessed it. Round-up.

    Oh my goodness. Panic set in. I ran out with a hose, but then thought, what if that makes it worse. I feverishly called the manufacturer and tried to get information on what I could do - the guy laughed and said pretty much I was screwed; once it was on the leaves there was nothing I could do. I went out and sprayed and sprayed anyway for hours. Ran the sprinkler for I think 2-3 days continuously.

    Wife came home. I said nothing.

    Flowers started looking bad in spots. Then worse.

    Eventually I had to fess up.

    And then I went out with a HUGE black permanent marker and LABELED the sprayers.

    Thankfully after her initial anger, she forgave me. And I wrote many checks that summer to replace flowers.

  • phidauex
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Ouch, lots of painful stories here! I've certainly made my share of errors, but chalk them all up to a learning process.

    Still a pervasive belief in our society that men somehow possess innate abilities to build or fix things, which simply isn't true. It doesn't matter who you are - quality work takes practice and deliberate effort.

    I try a lot of different household tasks and successfully maintain our home, vehicles, electronics, appliances, etc. but I follow a few rules:

    - Read the manual. Seriously.
    - Read at least three opinions on how to do the task.
    - Check the manual again.
    - Call a pro if the consequences of error are very high, the opportunity cost (tools and equipment) very high, or the type of work requires a lot of practice to do well.
    - During work, plan for twice as much time as you think you need, go slowly, and always use the correct tool for the job even if it means going back to the garage.
    - Add 50% to the project budget. Get the right materials for the job.

    And the most important rule:

    - If it doesn't go well, never tell. ;)

  • PhoneLady
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Topping

  • zeebee
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    I have a very smart DH who's an idiot when it comes to anything "handy". His destruction has been limited, thank goodness. But to demonstrate how clue-free he really is:

    In our last place we had professional painters in to do a lot of stripping of old woodwork and re-painting, but they quoted us a crazy number to include the closets and we thought, CLOSETS, we can handle THAT.

    So one weekend day I go out and buy some water-based paint, a few brushes and I go to work on the bedroom closet while DH tackles the study closet. He puts down the first coat, then goes to take a shower. After I'm done with my first coat, I get up on his ladder to start the second coat in the study. DH emerges from the shower, studies me with a confused look on his face, and says, " Interesting...YOU start at the TOP of the wall."

    I was all ".......um......doesn't everybody....?" while thinking, who in their RIGHT MIND paints a WALL from the BOTTOM UP?!?!?!?

  • Acadiafun
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Well I saved the attic restoration until last in our new house due to what I believed was asbestos tiles in the ceiling. DH and I discussed having it removed and new it would be costly.

    Came home two weeks ago and DH had removed all the tiles. They were "cellulose fiber" he said. He believed this because he found a box of ceiling tiles up there, but as I pointed out before, those tiles were different from the rest and were likely the source of the few "newer" tiles on the ceiling. He wasn't listening he said but I don't believe him. The reason is he wet the tiles down, used fans to blow air out of the windows and taped all the vents closed. Reckless......

    He and our friend are adding the drywall on the ceilings. A week later and two of the three rooms have drywall up. :(

    I worry about my husband, really I do.

  • painteddragon
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Bumping it up.

  • sherwoodva
    9 years ago
    last modified: 9 years ago

    Two years ago, we had the front porch redone and expanded. They replaced the old floor with reclaimed oak and finished it so that it looked like interior hardwood flooring. Beautiful!

    We have an ornamental cherry tree in the front yard, and in the summer, lots of small cherries end up on the porch, as well as cherries deposited by birds (poop). I asked DH to scrub the porch. A few weeks later, I noticed the finish was peeling, so I asked what he used. Pine Sol!

    He thought if it was OK for the vinyl tiles, it was OK for the porch. Sigh.