***Warning: This post is just complaining, and while I have been having a challenging time of late, I am basically fine, and as of this particular moment, even my appliances are fine. If you want to take that message and not read this post, I completely understand.***

If you followed me on Facebook in 2024, when I posting all my adventures and emotions there instead of here, you might recall that the ancient dishwasher that came with my condo broke, we had it fixed, it broke again, we bought a new one, it was delivered broken, we requested a replacement, THAT ONE WAS DELIVERED BROKEN, I started to believe the universe was against me, the fourth and final (probably not) dishwasher arrived without any of the previous being taken away due to paperwork f*ckery with Home Depot, I started to realize the universe is neutral but Home Depot is against me, I woke Mark up in the middle of the night screaming about the dishwasher, we lived in a home with four non-operational dishwashers for a while and eventually got one of them installed and it actually, against all odds, worked; the other three were removed; Home Depot reimbursed us for all the many times we had paid out of pocket to install dishwashers seemingly recreationally, and they gave us some extra gift cards as, I dunno, hush money (IT DID NOT WORK—I will sing the song of Home Depot hatred unto death), and for a while, all was quiet, in the sense that we just got the dishes clean and thought, occasionally, about other things. There was actually MORE to that story, with installers not showing up and paperwork being lost etc., but that’s as short as I can make it.

The above takes us to July 2024, and the period of calm takes us to about July 2025, when the manufacturer’s warrantee expired and the dishwasher started to experience some performance issues. With some coaxing, we were able to get it do an ok—not great—job cleaning the dishes, up until January 2026, when it abruptly ceased to function. Normally I would not have bought an extended warrantee but as this was our first major home appliance purchase we had, and upset as I was about going back into the maw of Home Depot, I was pleased that at least we’d get our money’s worth.

You may not be aware that Home Depot subcontracts their extended warrantees to Allstate and Allstate uses a subsidiary called Squaretrade to administer them. None of these organizations are affiliated with the manufacturer with our piece-of-sh*t dishwasher, which is Whirlpool. So though Squaretrade could book an appointment for us with a local technician immediately, Whirlpool had to ship us the parts (what parts? how did the phone person know what was broken? our dishwasher has an error code like a printer) from San Francisco for some reason. And there our troubles began (well, amplified).

So now, along with Home Depot, Allstate, Squaretrade, and Whirlpool, Purolator is involved in getting my dishwasher fixed, bringing a new motor for it across the continent. And then Purolator gave my dishwasher motor to an unnamed subcontractor who promptly lost it, causing me to miss my appointment with the local contractor and to argue for DAYS with Purolator—a company I would not have voluntarily shipped with—about what the definition of “lost” is. They kept insisting that just because the subcontractor registered my home as a “store” that was “closed” and that’s why they didn’t deliver it doesn’t mean they were in the wrong place, and just because the shipping window the shipper paid for wasn’t met didn’t mean they did anything wrong, and also how should they know what the subcontractor is doing? The dishwasher motor became untraceable and I began to despair. A manager named Tracy promised me an update the next business day and a gift card I could use for whatever I wanted, then ghosted. The hilarious thing is, long after a new motor had been shipped and the issue resolved, I received a $50 Amazon gift card with no further message from Tracy. I don’t normally shop at Amazon but I thought it was funny that they attempted to apologize for their terrible shipping by sending money to spend at a company that is famous for better shipping. I also got a paper cheque for $50 from Squaretrade in apology money, but even $100 isn’t close to the value of the time I spent on hold with these monsters.

Anyway, as I mention above, I missed two appointments with the Squaretrade techs before they finally allowed me to book my own appointment. (Squaretrade headoffice claimed to have cancelled the appointments but DIDN’T and the poor beleagured techs kept trying to come to my house to install nothing! None of us enjoyed that!) My thought was that whoever I hired would just order their own parts, not from San Franscisco, but mysteriously, a second motor had been shipped without my knowing so they just installed that, which is the one nice part of the story. And now the dishwasher works better than it has since the summer so I guess the motor had been dying for a while. Squaretrade still owes me $282.50 reimbursement for the service call, which they swear the cheque is the mail for and every single one of these companies is ABSOLUTELY MONSTROUS.

At one point, in my customer service nightmare, a very stoned individual was utterly failing to help me and I asked (very politely) to speak to a manager, and he disappeared for a while and came back and said it might be some time because the manager was dealing with an earthquake. I was startled and asked where they were—the person I was talking to said he was in Colombia, but the manager was someplace else. I suggested perhaps I could talk to some other manager, located in a place away from the earthquake? But was assured there was no other manager available in the entire global organization except this guy, who I was actually eventually transferred to. He was sort of curt and unhelpful, but actually not the worst I dealt with in this venture and WHO COULD BLAME HIM. I hope things worked out ok for him (Vincent), earthquake-wise.

HOME DEPOT = SATAN