I don't know if it is being raised in the south or growing up poor, but I hate to spend money on something I think is unnecessary. When something breaks I just can't stand the thought of throwing it out and buying a new one with out first at least trying to fix it. My cheap little southern mind just can't wrap around spending a couple hundred on something new when you may be able to fix the old one for just a couple of dollars (sometimes just a few cents)! I mean really that money could buy....like...shoes and hair stuff! LOL

Which finally brings me to my newest crisis in which my husband was going to spend money that I didn't think was necessary. Not being blessed with central heat & air we cool our house with window units. A couple of days ago we had a slight cool front with the rain and all so I turned my bedroom unit off for a little while. BIG mistake. When I turned it back on it commenced to make a rattling sound and shoot water out into the room. We've had problems with water not draining out of this unit properly before so I assumed that was the problem.

Well, I spent the next few days telling my dh that we needed to take the unit out of the window to clean it out and was getting all the response of talking to a brick wall. I could see the writing on the wall. He had written this unit off. He was going to spend money on a new one with out even trying to fix this one. This is his normal response to broken things. This goes against every fiber of my being. I was raised in the lap of southern ingenuity. I swear it's like no one ever introduced this poor boy to duct tape and bailing wire! Since with no air it was too hot to sleep in my room I spent three nights sleeping in my dd room which was a huge drag 'cause I just now got her to stop sleeping in MY room. Any who, I just couldn't take it any longer. I knew I was going to have to fix this problem on my own before he spent money that.... well, could be better spent on me. (Just kidding we have 4 kids with birthdays this month.)

So.... I tried to turn it on one more time. May be it fixed itself, right? LOL

OH MY LORD IN HEAVEN THANK YOU FOR ALLOWING ME TO LIVE THROUGH THAT STENCH! I kid you not, I've smelled dead things, litter boxes and hundreds of other filthy things that did not smell that awful!! (Pardon me here while I say, "OH HELL NO! This thing had to go!") With Brandon's help I got the unit out of the window and slipped out out of it's casing. I will not get into details here but I will say that something definitely was rotting in there. I deserve like...House Wife Of The Year or something for cleaning that thing up. After a liberal use of Lysol and a power hose I finally felt that it was clean enough. I turned it over all different directions to make sure all the water was out and leaving the casing off I plugged it in. As I wasn't about to haul this thing back up into the window if it wasn't fixed. Sure enough it now was blowing cold non-stench like air without throwing water but... the rattling noise was still there.

I thought the rattling noise had been caused by the fan hitting the water in the bottom but that didn't seem to be the case.... The noise was more near the front. Sooooo... I leaned over and sure enough encased in that compartment in the front there was yet another fan and it was rattling. "Well, you've already taken it apart this much what's a little more, aye?" Getting this compartment open actually involved unhooking a wire and moving the digital box off to the side a little. Hey, I figured, "It's already broken what more damage could I do, right?" You would not believe what I found in there. It stopped just slightly short of being as gross as whatever the rotting thing was..... NO WONDER I have to have allergy shots sleeping in a room where the air came from this evil source!!!! OK More very liberal amounts of Lysol and power hosing. Turning and dumping water out..."Opps, I think water got inside that digital box... Yep, it did. OK open the digital box. Really what have you got to lose now?" I ended up blow drying out the digital box plugging in again and...

Ta Da it works beautifully! It runs just as quite and cold as a new one. I nearly killed myself trying to get it back in the window....But hey it's fixed and didn't cost a cent. I tell ya if anyone can figure out how to fix things things themselves to save a buck, Southern Gals Can!