Yesterday evening, while puttering in the kitchen, I heard a strange and sudden noise. A very out of place noise, coming from the living room.

So out of place, even the cats started to gather round, searching for the source.

In fact, it was the cats that lead me right to the source, partially hidden by a shelf.

For some reason, this outlet fried itself.

There were two power cords plugged into it. On one of them, nothing plugged into it was being used. On the other there was a salt lamp and a Orbi WiFi mesh device, both of which are always on, neither of which take a lot of power.

The breaker tripped, as it should, which has lead to some other problems.

We’re discovering what else was on that breaker.

On the panel, it’s labelled living room and bathroom. The living room has only 3 outlets. There’s the one that fried, of course. Another that powered the aquarium greenhouses, which are empty right now, is no longer working. The third, which powers the charger for a cordless phone handset, is still working.

The bathroom lights and fan no longer work. At least the bathroom already had a battery operated LED light switch to use, rather than blinding ourselves when going to the bathroom at night. With a second portable LED light next to the mirror, the room gets let up pretty well. Plus, there’s the window into the sun room. That gives us some light during the day, and we can open it more to make up for the lack of a fan.

I discovered an outlet in the new basement, which was being used to power a fan aimed at a damp spot in the corner, was no longer working. Nor is the light switch for the unfinished bar we’re now using as cat-proof storage. I was able to plug the fan in at another outlet, though it needed a much longer extension cord. That actually allowed me to put the fan in a more efficient spot, so no real complaints there.

Overall, things would be fine, except for one more outlet that stopped working. An upstairs outlet.

The one the girls’ computers is plugged into.

That room has only two outlets, a two prong and a three prong. So they can’t even plug into the other outlet.

Which means my older daughter can’t work.

She now has to find a way to email her clients and ask if they’re okay with a delay in their commissions, or if they want their money back.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to get our electrician in to fix it, but we can’t do that until my husband’s disability payment comes in – which, thankfully, is soon.

Not good – but it could have been a lot worse!

The Re-Farmer