Author Topic: Who here can fall down in poo and come out smelling like a rose.....  (Read 2083 times)

Duke03

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Sorry for the title, but my buddy was giving me a hard time saying I always have the best luck..... with things that should go horribly bad.  Case in my point my latest triumph...  A month ago I was up late one night during a really bad storm.  I'm not sure if lighting actually hit our house or hit very close to it in the yard.  All I know is that I was in my office and it was like someone turned a spot light towards my house.  It was pitch dark but my interior of the home light up like a Christmas tree.  At the same time my modem stated popping and it literally sounded like someone was shooting at me. Pop Pop Pop just like that.  Of course half the house goes dead right off the bat.  I head to the breaker box and half the breakers are flipped.  I reset everything and then head up in the attic to make sure the house isn't on fire.  Long story short it fried all our cable boxes, modem, home phone, baby monitor, blue ray player, both garage door openers, our a/c, and caused the hdmi plug on our tv that our cable box was plugged into to not work.  Not a huge deal since our tv has 4 hdmi plugs.

I got lucky on the home A/C as our house is still under warranty from the builder.  (its a new home)  I called them up and just played stupid.  Said you need to fix this as it's not working.  Didn't say anything about the lightning strike.  They fixed me up right away.  The next call was to the cable company telling them we needed all new equipment as nothing on their end worked.  When the tech came out he informed me who ever installed our system originally did it wrong and never hooked up the ground wire.  In his opinion this caused all our issues.  Knowing how hard this cable company is to deal with I never thought we could actually get them to compensate us for anything as I figured they'd just past the buck and kick the can down the road and claim it was an act of god. 

So I sicked my wife on them lol.  Low and behold they sent a claims rep out and they documented everything and took pictures of all the serial numbers.  Luckily we always save all our receipts from expensive purchases and electronics for warranty purposes.  With out even flinching the cable company claimed it was their fault and they'd reimburse us 100% for all our damages.  I couldn't believe it!  Best thing is they paid us for our $1,700 Tv that really doesn't have anything wrong with it and I was able to fix my garage door openers by swapping out the circuit boards for free cause I still had a parts warranty on them.  The cable company even reimbursed me the install fee on the garage door openers.  The only things we had to buy was a new home phone, baby monitor, and a blue ray player.  I still can't believe my wonderful wife got em to pay for all that stuff lol. 

Ann

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Re: Who here can fall down in poo and come out smelling like a rose.....
« Reply #1 on: March 15, 2017, 12:12:29 AM »
I'm glad it all worked out!

I'm not sure I agree with your buddy and say that you have the best luck.  The lightening strike is a cool story but it still sounds super inconvenient to have to deal with the aftermath (even though things seemed to line up).  You still did without services for a while.  You had to call several companies.  I had calling even to activate my replacement credit card.

So glad your house did not catch fire!  I guess that it really was lucky in that sense.


marty998

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Re: Who here can fall down in poo and come out smelling like a rose.....
« Reply #2 on: March 15, 2017, 12:38:59 AM »
Do you have a surge protector / switch that trips when these things occur? It would go someway towards preventing the frying of all your circuits....

BlueHouse

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Re: Who here can fall down in poo and come out smelling like a rose.....
« Reply #3 on: March 15, 2017, 12:43:56 PM »
Do you have a surge protector / switch that trips when these things occur? It would go someway towards preventing the frying of all your circuits....

If he's going to get a surge protector now, shouldn't he also invest in a lottery ticket?   You know...the lightening never strikes twice thing.

Goldielocks

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Re: Who here can fall down in poo and come out smelling like a rose.....
« Reply #4 on: March 15, 2017, 02:12:39 PM »
Man,  confirmation bias.

It was not lucky to be struck by lightning

-- "things we had to buy was a new home phone, baby monitor, and a blue ray player." -- that must have cost money.  (in fact, if other home damage had occured, you likely own insurance to cover things.. having insurance is not lucky).

-- Huge hassle
-- you had the skills to replace the circults on the garage door -- not luck.
-- you likely have a pleasant manner that the telecom person responded fairly to, and an incident that was clearly not your fault.  -- not luck.
-- you kept your receipts -- not luck. 
--you had the money to replace the other items, as needed -- not luck.

Hey, this is a clear example of what people mean when they say "You make your own luck".   I could learn to be as lucky as you.


 

BlueHouse

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Re: Who here can fall down in poo and come out smelling like a rose.....
« Reply #5 on: March 15, 2017, 02:55:25 PM »
Unlucky:  A colleague of mine had his roof damage TWICE by hailstorms. 
Lucky:  The storms happened 17 years apart and coincided with (near) end of life of the roof both times.  Insurance paid 100% or close to 100% replacement for the roof.