busybee fluffy rambles

On Friday I heard and felt a rather large thud from somewhere in the house. I was worried that maybe this was the sound of part of my roof collapsing. I looked all around on the outside, and checked inside the attic, and even the basement, to try to figure out the source of the sound, and nothing seemed amiss. There’s been some major construction at a house around the corner so I thought maybe it was just some heavy machinery from that, and I went into the bathroom to wash my hands.

Ah.

So, I managed to get the bottom propped up on some incompressible things (so I wouldn’t have a load-bearing sink faucet, and also to relieve the pressure on the cabinet’s lower-left corner (which was pressed up against the wall and is probably what stopped my faucet from breaking). I emptied and removed the shelves, and got some help from my next-door neighbor to get the cabinet taken down, and what I saw behind it ended up being completely unsurprising.

Basically, the fucking installer decided that it would be okay to just screw the cabinet directly into the drywall. There were no anchors, no attempt at bracing against the studs in any way. Nothing.

How. The fuck. Can anyone be this goddamn incompetent.

Thankfully the damage was pretty minimal. Just a scratch on the top of my faucet (which isn’t too obvious, which is good because it’s that stupid fake “oiled bronze” finish that’s impossible to repair) and some easily-repaired gouges in the drywall behind the cabinet, and some slight damage to the paint on the wall.

I discussed some options with a couple folks in my choir (just because they happened to be present since we were talking about tonight’s then-upcoming talent show¹) and I think I have a plan of action going forward.

What the installer should have done was install drywall toggle anchors (like what I used to reinforce my TV’s mount), but unfortunately the damage to the drywall has probably compromised its integrity enough that just anchoring it wouldn’t be sufficient anymore. So, what I’m going to do, to correct yet another stupid mistake on a project I thought was done with, is to get some ¼" thick hardwood stripping to act as blocking on top of the drywall, screwing it in to the studs, and then installing drywall toggle anchors at the ends. Something like this:

The theory here is that this will spread the load between the drywall (via the toggle anchors) and the studs (via the blocking). ¼" thick blocking would fit well within the wiring-accommocation void in the back of the cabinet, and still leave room for the actual power cord (for the lights in the doors). There’s a little more detail to deal with because of some of the fiddly bits of the cabinet’s power cable management but it’s not worth getting into here.

And, the only thing I need to buy for this is a blocking strip, and thankfully Home Depot sells pre-cut hardwood in exactly the size I need for like $5/piece.

Anyway, on the plus side, there was one bit of incompetence/laziness that the installer did that worked out in my favor here: with this cabinet, you’re supposed to remove an adhesive strip that permanently attaches the door lights into the slots on the doors. Which the installer didn’t do. If he had, then I wouldn’t have been able to remove the doors without destroying the lights, and I’d be looking at a much more expensive replacement here. So, thank goodness for dumb oversights, for once. (And this does explain why the panel lights are loose and rattly, but I feel like maybe I should keep it that way, just in case.)

I also updated my review of the contractor on Yelp to the extremely negative one that it should have been in the first place, because holy shit.

Oh also a couple weeks ago I had to fully replace the toilet, too, although I don’t think that was the contractor’s fault, it was just old and the bowl was starting to crack. I accidentally bought the updated version of the exact same toilet (the Cadet by American Standard, if you’re curious) and it’s totally fine, and a lot more water-efficient than the old mid-80s version.

After reading some of the newer reviews of this contractor on Yelp now I have a bunch of other things to worry about. The contractor has responded to all of the negative ones with excuses about it being an installer/subcontractor who he never hires anymore, but that still doesn’t fill me with confidence that I don’t have some other major water disaster coming later. For example, here’s an excerpt from one particularly detailed review:

They pretty much had to rebuild everything they touched after I inspected, it was just sub-par work and I am pretty sure they lost money just because I was paying attention. Some examples:

1. Caught them plastering over live electrical junctions without a junction box. At least twice. In a bathroom of all places.
2. Shower backing installed on a crooked wall leading to extensive (2"+) give when leaning against wall (What you do is install a level wall first and then mount against that…basic stuff)
3. I dont think they owned a level or a square. All you had to do was build a 5' box to hide some plumbing and it was off on every side by about 1"!
4. Plumbing a drain from a 2.5" toilet installed with a down slant of about 5 degrees constricting to a 1.5" drain. Tried to convince me it was “fine” before I insisted it wasn’t (it absolutely isnt)
5. Overflow valve on tub installed with O-ring on the wrong side of tub leading to massive flood the minute we attempted to fill tub for the first time - this was the credit back since Tri did not have time to fix.
6. Timeline overrun of ~5 weeks on an initial 3 week estimate to complete

So, yeah, ugh. None of these reviews existed when I hired these bozos.