I already mentioned how I got over the inadequacies of a microwave that could melt a ceramic bowl before heating the chilled soup inside it. Sadly, appliances bit back big time again as we tried to use the self-clean function on the oven.

Face masks, gas masks and ear defenders anyone? - and that was just for the neighbors. Inside we were asphyxiated and almost past help as fumes and smoke and alarms went nuts for 4 hours. I exaggerate, of course. We taped up the smoke alarms after 20 minutes, opened all windows and ran for the hills, returning 4 hours later.

And it didn't even clean everything off the oven walls! Bastards.

Macerator madness

I got an earful from Mrs Ed a while back for feeding chicken bones to the waste disposal machine. I admit I was wrong, and should have remembered that the blades to the entry level macerator even struggled to mash up tea leaves. How stupid of me to think the appliances in a $400k home would be fit for purpose. Luckily I got away with the oversight - and lived to fight another day.