Dec 17
We were going to The Netherlands to celebrate my in-laws 40th anniversary, on Dec 19. The Saturday before Christmas, on the first day of the school holiday, great planning 40 years ago!
The night before we were leaving, I was showering the kids, when suddenly the ceiling lights started to burn on half power. Worried I told the kids to step out of the shower and dry themselves while I went downstairs to the fuse box. I smelled a faint burning smell, and then all the lights went out. The boys were terrified and started to scream, so I went up again and brought them downstairs and made them sit on the sofa under a blanket. I tried to reset the earth leakage circuit breaker, but it clicked down immediately with big sparks. I reset the main earth breaker outside the house, same story, with even bigger sparks and again a burning smell. So I decided it was not just a simple, isolated problem, but a huge system flaw.
We are lucky to have street lights in our compound (not so common in Cz) and one is in front of our house. So we got some light from outside, and lots of candles. But I couldn’t find my cell phone, landline was dead of course. I went to the neighbors, asked them to call me, found my cell phone and called Romke to tell him to come home. The boys were asleep on the sofa, it was already 20.30.
So… what do you do??? I called the maintenance man of the development, (luckily he picked up his phone after working hours) but he told me no electrician would come in the evening, especially with all the snow outside. And it’s not like we could call somebody ourselves, we don’t speak the language, they don’t speak English… He said he would stop by in the morning, but we planned to drive to Holland early in the morning.
We just packed our bags with candle light, opened the garage door and gate by hand and parked the car on the street.
Well, I give you the short version of the story. At 23.00 an electrician came, it took him over an hour to fix it. (after some serious smoke came from the microwave). He didn’t speak one word of English (I’m not exaggerating, not even hello of bye) and our Czech is very very very basic, but he was friendly. And we found out the heater was working ok (it was -11 C, 12F so we were very happy with that), the fridge was working, and the electric cooker + oven was working.
But… dishwasher, washing machine, espresso machine, microwave, external hard drive for back up files, desktop computer, telephone, several ceiling lights, garage door, electric front gate, Hard drive for recording tv, gas fire place… all fried…
We went to the Netherlands, and had a good time. Since then, several electricians have come to find the source of the problem, cannot find it. We’re still in the process of debating with landlord and insurance, and having the stuff replaced or repaired. And again, that’s very complicated if you don’t speak each other’s language. Imagine a man ringing your doorbell, and you have no idea whatsoever if he is another electrician or a Jehovah Witness, if he is sent by the insurance company or the compound or the local electricity company, if he‘s here to repair something, or to take something with him to repair it at his workshop, if he’s going to stay for 5 minutes or 2 hours (and you have to leave to pick up the kids from school) etc. etc.
So far we have a loan washing machine, and the gate and garage door are repaired. Romke misses his espresso machine very very much…
