They sure don’t make them like they used to.
I used to roll my eyes when I was younger and heard an adult say that. But I’ll be darned if they weren’t right.
It seems like there is hardly a product that you can purchase anymore that doesn’t break at the slightest provocation. Even large expensive purchases, such as appliances, aren’t made to last anymore.
My husband and I purchased our first house in Crystal City in 2018. While the house was built in 1925, it had been updated and had all relatively new appliances, mostly five to 10 years old.
The tone for constant repairs was set almost immediately when the day after we closed on the house, both springs on the garage door snapped. We hadn’t even unpacked our boxes before we had to call a repairman. A $500 bill later, we decided to be optimists and told ourselves that it was actually a good thing.
We had our first big expense out of the way, we said. What a milestone!
But then it seemed like we just could not catch a break at that house. Something always seemed to be breaking.
A belt in the dryer broke. My husband ordered a new part and replaced it. A heating element went out a few months later. He ordered another new part and replaced that too. When the third issue came up, we decided to take advantage of a holiday sale and bite the bullet. We spent a few hundred bucks and bought a new dryer.
We were bound to have to replace one appliance, we said.
Then the oven door broke. My husband ordered a part and replaced the door. A few months later, it started inexplicably broiling all of our food. He ordered and replaced a temperature sensor. Then another few months later, a couple of the burners on the top stopped working. We got frustrated, spent the few hundred bucks and bought a new one.
The garbage disposal stopped working. My husband figured out the issue, ordered a new part, and fixed it. Months later, it started tripping the breaker every time we turned it on. That sounds potentially dangerous, we said. We better get a new garbage disposal, once again opening our wallets.
A couple of months before our son was due to be born, our heat stopped working. We were informed that it was unrepairable, and our entire HVAC system had to be completely replaced. Well, we can’t have a newborn in a house without heat or air conditioning, we said, while trying not to freak out at dropping $8,000 right before having our first child.
We were frustrated, to say the least. It seemed like replacement after replacement after replacement. My husband, tired of the constant repairs, started mentioning he wanted to move to a newer, bigger house now that we had a baby. I drug my feet. I loved the house, despite its recurring issues. I found excuse after excuse to not move.
It all came to a head while I was watering my roses in the backyard. We had just replaced our garden hose for the third time in three years. The first one had gotten a leak almost immediately after purchase. The hose we purchased to replace it soon came unglued from the nozzle part. The third hose that we spent 50 stinking bucks on was marketed as a “no kink” variety. Turns out, it kinked incessantly. Any time I moved that hose more than 6 inches while watering the garden, it would knot itself up. After about the 37th time walking over and unkinking it, in frustration, I gave the hose a good hard yank. It brushed against a rose thorn and promptly burst, gushing water from the puncture. Another $50 wasted.
I finally hit my breaking point. I let out a curse-laden diatribe about that hose the likes our backyard had never heard before.
“I’VE HAD IT!” I screamed at my alarmed husband who came trotting outside to see what the matter was. “LET’S SELL THIS -EXPLETIVE- HOUSE RIGHT -EXPLETIVE- NOW!”
My husband tried not to smile as he said, “Well, now you know how I feel!”
We found a new house and put our own on the market. After listing our house, our dishwasher stopped working. Sounds about right, we said, while rolling our eyes and forking over another few hundred bucks for a new one.
We had been in the house for just under six years. Good riddance, we said. Our next house will be much better, we said. We won’t be plagued by these constant issues, we said.
Within a few weeks of moving into the new house, the exact same garage door issue we had at the first house happened, with the springs snapping. Welcome home, we said, placing our faces directly into our palms.
We’ve had a repairman out to fix our dishwasher in the new house twice.
We’re by no means rough on our appliances. I prewash all our dishes before running the dishwasher. I don’t put chunks of food or greasy things down the drain. I don’t run overly large loads of laundry. I unhook and store our hoses in the garage at the first frost.
I remember growing up, we had the same hose at our house for years and years, never taking it inside but instead letting it freeze and thaw about 100 times every winter. It still worked fine.
My parents used the same washer and dryer without incident for two decades with five kids.
I can’t help but believe nearly all our problems have been due to planned obsolescence, which is the practice of manufacturers intentionally designing their products to have a limited lifespan, after which they lose functionality or are unrepairable. This leads to customers having to replace those items more frequently, which both boosts sales for the business and also fills our landfills with unnecessary trash. You know, typical super villain-level stuff.
France has actually made planned obsolescence illegal. No, really.
Under French law, manufacturers are barred from deliberately shortening a product’s lifespan or making it unnecessarily difficult to repair. If prosecutors can prove that a product was intentionally designed to fail prematurely, companies can face consequences from substantial fines all the way up to company executives receiving prison sentences.
And to that, I say “Vive la France.” I’m about one dishwasher repair away from cheering for the “GE” on my appliances to stand for “Guillotine Executives.”
I wish we could get some of those French laws stateside, but considering our Congress’ inability to pass even the most popular legislation, I won’t hold my breath. C’est la vie.
Oh, and remember the hose incident that prompted us to buy a new house where all our problems would be over? Last week, our third hose in three summers busted after mere weeks of gentle usage. This one was a fancy $100 “bust-proof” hose with “protective strain relief” and “patented force control technology.”
Sacre bleu.