Our kitchen faucet broke recently. S went to pull out the sprayer hose and the corroded metal tubing around the hose broke. Sharp metal next to rubber tubing also meant that we developed a small hole in the hose. A little duct tape held us over the weekend until we could arrange a plumber. On Monday I contacted our rental company and later that day a woman from the plumber's office called and said someone would be over shortly. I was happy to manage this in German. The plumber arrived and looked at the faucet and then left to go back to his truck to get the parts he needed. He left the work order on the counter and I looked at it out of curiosity to see how what I had told the rental manager had been translated to the plumber's work order. It was all in German, of course, and the problem description seemed accurate. At the end of the description was a line set apart from the rest of the text that said "Mieter spricht Englisch, gebrochen Deutsch." Tenant speaks English, broken German. I laughed. At least it is getting better.
The plumber replaced our old faucet with a new one. (In case you were wondering, I didn't watch the operation much but there was no apparent plumber's crack. This guy had well-fit pants and was a lean, mean plumbing machine). My favorite part is the happy red and blue dancing dolphins to indicate water temperature. The European market seems to have many more elegant solutions to everyday household appliances and functions. Among these is the integrated faucet and sprayer system.*
*Also available in the USA, with at least 191 variations. (See Anonymous hecklers in comments).
Our kitchen faucet broke recently. S went to pull out the sprayer hose and the corroded metal tubing around the hose broke. Sharp metal next to rubber tubing also meant that we developed a small hole in the hose. A little duct tape held us over the weekend until we could arrange a plumber. On Monday I contacted our rental company and later that day a woman from the plumber's office called and said someone would be over shortly. I was happy to manage this in German. The plumber arrived and looked at the faucet and then left to go back to his truck to get the parts he needed. He left the work order on the counter and I looked at it out of curiosity to see how what I had told the rental manager had been translated to the plumber's work order. It was all in German, of course, and the problem description seemed accurate. At the end of the description was a line set apart from the rest of the text that said "Mieter spricht Englisch, gebrochen Deutsch." Tenant speaks English, broken German. I laughed. At least it is getting better.
The plumber replaced our old faucet with a new one. (In case you were wondering, I didn't watch the operation much but there was no apparent plumber's crack. This guy had well-fit pants and was a lean, mean plumbing machine). My favorite part is the happy red and blue dancing dolphins to indicate water temperature. The European market seems to have many more elegant solutions to everyday household appliances and functions. Among these is the integrated faucet and sprayer system.*
*Also available in the USA, with at least 191 variations. (See Anonymous hecklers in comments).
5 comments:
gebrochen...funny! So, you think the US doesn't have integrated faucets? You better head to a Home Depot sometime!
That's a pretty nifty faucet you have there.
Also, I'm curious about the final bill -- I'm guessing it was the equivalent of $300 or more. (Did the rental company pay, I hope?)
My dad's house has had one of them there fancy kitchen gadgets for years; well, sans the weird patriotic dolphins. They would not fit well in a conservative Yankee kitchen, you know?
Dear Anonymous Hecklers,
You are absolutely correct. I checked homedepot.com and they list 191 options for "pullout" faucets. I think I worded the entry poorly. My intention was not so much to say that the US doesn't have elegant appliances and household gadgets, but rather that they (elegant gadgets in general, not just faucets) seem to be more common here. I don't spend a lot of time in new homes in the US so I could be wrong. That's the beauty of blogging though, I can say whatever I want whether it has any basis in fact or not :) I will post some of my favorite stuff at some point. Please continue to weigh-in on your pullout faucet experiences in the meantime.
Neil,
All I had to do was sign the work order (rental company will be billed). I don't know what the cost was but I can tell you labor is quite expensive here.
Post a Comment