Please! Just Fit... We can't keep doing this...

I have an interesting story to tell. It’s all about how we bought new refrigerators for both units. Riveting, I know, but this was our biggest, most stressful struggle to date since actually purchasing the property. It was incredibly discouraging while we were in the thick of it and while everything was finally concluded last week, it took me awhile to feel settled enough to write this-

When we purchased the property, we knew that we would need an updated refrigerator for both units – the timeline was accelerated however when our tenant told us that her fridge would leak water all over the floor on occasion and that every single drawer inside of it was broken. Plus, it was way too small to be functional in a four-bedroom apartment. Okay, priority list adjusted, fridge moved up to now. It was a tough decision, trying to balance out cost, durability, efficiency, and appeal – we wanted to do right by our tenant as our first big purchase for the unit as well as ensure that this appliance update would serve us well in the future. We made a decision, purchased and set the delivery date for both refrigerators at the same time.

I was to accept the delivery alone as Stuart could not be home. The guys came and brought in the fridge for our first-floor unit no problem. Popped the doors off the hinges, took the doors off the fridge, and walked it right in. When it came time to deliver to the second floor, they took one look at the tightly twisting, enclosed back stairwell and said, “There is no way we are getting up there. We have to use the front door.”

Now, let’s pause and mention the Stuart and I had not measured the front door as we assumed that the delivery would go up the back steps. Guess what? Yup, the fridge was too big to get through our old front doors. It was crushing that even something this simple could become such a major pain – not to mention that I felt terrible and was taking it very personally. It was my job to handle this delivery and now these men were driving away with our appliance still on their truck and I had to tell our tenant that she was not getting a new fridge and should plug in the old one which she had already so diligently defrosted overnight. It did not help at all that someone told me, “Maybe next time have Stuart there. He would know what to do.” I felt so utterly incapable and helpless.

That night, I picked up Stuart and we went to cancel the order for the undeliverable refrigerator and pick a new one. The reimbursement for the canceled order was a complete mess, but let’s just focus on the appliance. When placing the new order, we told the salesman what had happened and that we needed a fridge that could fit through a doorway that is 26” wide. He measured with us, helped us to feel reassured it would fit, and we set another delivery date.

The day before this second delivery, Stuart called the store to check on the reimbursement for the canceled order that was still giving us issues (a comedy of errors as they say). While he had someone on the phone, he had an instinct to make sure that the delivery for the following day was all set. He was told that we did NOT have a delivery set for the next day, that it was scheduled for three days later. They had canceled and rescheduled our delivery without telling us. The irony is that later that day, we received an automated call confirming our original delivery date and time frame. I called to double check and was told that this message was sent in error – it was a good thing Stuart had thought to ask about the delivery or we would have been waiting around for a delivery that was never coming. I had to tell our tenant again, “So sorry, the refrigerator is not being delivered tomorrow like we originally planned. We have a new delivery date”. At least she hadn’t started to defrost it again, but it felt extremely unprofessional and was an inconvenience for her that we had to keep rescheduling. Not how we want to run a business, so we were just hoping that this would be over soon.

We are so fortunate to have flexible enough jobs that all of this shifting could be worked out. Stuart was able to be home on the newly assigned delivery date while I needed to go to work. Halfway through the day, he gives me a call. The delivery guys are saying that the fridge will not fit through the front door (how is this possible?! We measured, we were reassured!!). They can try to bring it through, but if they take it off the truck and unpack it, they can’t put it back on – we would be stuck with it. My response was have them try, scratch the fridge, dent the wall, it doesn’t matter at this point; we are on our third promised install day for our tenant and she has defrosted her current refrigerator twice. It was time to wrap this up.

They try, it won’t fit. Apparently, this model has a base that is wider than the top. And here we had assumed all refrigerators are rectangular, go figure. There is a little extra width on the bottom to accommodate the motor. It made the fridge about an inch too wide at the bottom to fit through the doorway. After giving me all of this information, I received a text from Stuart saying, “I’ll try to figure something out”. I responded with, “Don’t you dare try to move a refrigerator by yourself. I’m coming home”.

It was about 1PM at that point and I knew that our tenant would be home around 3PM. We really wanted to have this taken care of before she came home. And a brand new fridge sitting on the front porch is not our idea of “taken care of”. We spent the next two or three hours trying to move that dumb thing up that dumb back stairwell. We went in at every angle, we rotated it, we tipped it and angled it as far as we could – we could reasonably conclude that the delivery guys were right, it was not going up those stairs.

We stood staring at the front door and came to the conclusion that our only option was to cut the door frame just enough that we could slip the fridge through it. So we did. Our tenant came home to us in full respirators and goggles, using a large reciprocating saw to trim off part of the door frame, the front door already removed and set to the side. It must have looked quite comical and slightly horrifying. That is what it felt like from the inside anyway. In the end, we did it. We cut about an inch off of either side of the door frame in a 14” section. It took a little pushing and quite a bit of yelling, but we got the fridge up those stairs and into that kitchen.

Throughout this, both delivery teams (from delivery of fridge one and delivery of fridge two) had told us that the old appliance in the top floor unit could not be removed, that it was too wide to go out the front door or down the back stairwell. It was suggested that it must have initially been delivered with a crane through a window. The state of this rental? No one put money into renting a crane just to deliver a fridge. No way, we knew it got up there by more conventional means. At this point in the process, the new fridge was in the kitchen and I was about ready to throw the old one right out the window. We did the impossible though. We took the doors off the fridge and got it down the back stairwell. By comparison to what we had just gone through, I would say it was fairly easy.

For us, it felt like a monumental victory: we had found a solution (don’t worry, we glued and nailed the pieces back to the door frame when we were done), we had carried a fridge by ourselves up to a second-floor unit and had carried another fridge back out. We did what they kept telling us could not be done. And we had finally delivered on a promise to our very, very patient tenant.

In the end, it is still just a fridge and we may not have a lot to show for our pains. That night, we were so exhausted and completely spent that the victory did feel hollow to us. Looking back, however, it was a big accomplishment and it’s pretty incredible what we were able to do, just the two of us, with essentially no experience or know-how.

Our takeaways from this experience:

• Always call ahead – protect your own interests as no one else will be as invested as you!
• Move a refrigerator-sized cardboard box first, just to make sure it will fit!
• We are resourceful and can do the darn near impossible!

I’ll tell you one thing, that refrigerator had better last for a long, long time because it is not going anywhere!

-Karina (Original post on personal blog)