Okay. Maybe not the worst day ever but it’s pretty up there. Definitely top 10 worst days of our lives. John wrote the following as a review that was posted online regarding our experience but has since agreed to take it down in return for a partial refund but I still wanted to share this here with a few additions and corrections because this day had a HUGE impact on us – mentally and emotionally not to mention financially. I have marked out the faces of the employees and taken out the names of the companies involved.
The day started like any other move day – we woke up, showered, finished packing up and hit the road. We were leaving Charlestown State Park in Charlestown, Indiana and beginning what should have been about a 4 hour drive to Milton, West Virginia. I have mentioned before but I want to say again how I am so thankful that we drive separate because of situations like this. I was following behind the house and had just called my grandma to chat when I noticed black smoke coming from the back passenger side of the house. I quickly hung up my call and called John, yelling at him to “PULL OVER NOW – THE HOUSE IS SMOKING”. It’s always scary to see smoke coming from any vehicle in front of you on the highway but when it is everything you own in addition to your 6 cats and its connected to the truck that your husband is driving- it’s TERRIFYING!
John pulled over to the side of the highway and we got out to inspect. John quickly came to the conclusion that it was an issue with the wheel-bearing. We decided that we could not stay on the side of the highway so we got back into the cars and he slowly pulled into the right lane. We proceeded at a slow speed to the next exit (New Albany, Indiana) where we were able to find a strip mall/shopping center. We pulled into the alley behind the shopping center and started searching for roadside mechanics (we aren’t members of AAA or Good Sam as they won’t cover tiny houses).
The following is John’s summary of the next 14 hours. We have left out the name of the company as they have been somewhat cooperative with our complaints and we promised to take down the negative review:
We called a local roadside service company at 11 AM on Saturday because one of my trailer bearings was smoking. The man that answered said that he would send out Terry. Terry asked that I send photos so I sent photos to the number given. I waited 10 mins and didn’t hear anything so I called to see if that was what he needed and he said that he would head out (11:30). At 12:59, I called to see where he was and he told me that he was sending out Brandon instead (a different company that they contract with). At 1:12, Brandon calls and says that he is headed my way and is 25 mins out. At 2:09, Brandon pulls up with another guy to help him out. After 3 hours we finally have someone on site to begin repairs to my trailer.
They worked on my trailer to remove the wheel and then found that the spindle had swollen and they had to cut the spindle nut off. At 3:15, Brandon said that he needed to get parts and went and sat in his truck to look for them while his assistant finished changing my other tire since they had the trailer jacked up. At 4:15, he called me over to his truck and stated that the closest place to get parts was Kentucky and it was 30 minutes away. That sucks but it is a trailer so parts are probably harder to find. Not a big deal.
He stated that he needed a deposit at that point and I advised him that I had a credit card. He stated that he wasn’t going to run it but just needed to hold onto it as security. In return he would leave his assistant and his trailer of tools. I gave him my CC and he headed out to look for parts around 4:30 after disconnecting the trailer.
Around 6 I called to see what he was thinking timewise to get back and how long to finish the repair so that we could find a place to sleep for the night. My call was sent directly to voicemail. He called back about 6:15 and said that the store sent him to the wrong place and he had to drive the opposite direction to get parts and he would head back once he got them.
The assistant was with us the whole time but wasn’t left a chair or anything so I got him a chair where he promptly fell asleep. No biggie, we are all tired anymore. After the 6:15 call he wakes up and starts to work on the spindle. I look over and he has nodded out (see photo below) while trying to rethread the spindle. He is holding the thread nut at a 45 degree angle to the spindle, pushing and twisting, while completely unconscious. For those of you not familiar, it is called nodding out and is a leading symptom of Fentanyl and heroin use. I told him to stop touching my trailer and I called the owner of the original repair company to tell him because Brandon was still not answering his phone.
The owner answers and I tell him what is happening and he acts confused that Terry isn’t there. I advise that Terry sent Brandon. He says he will get Terry out there immediately and we hang up. About 10 mins later I get a call from Brandon asking me to have his assistant call him. His phone is dead so Brandon asks me to hand him mine and then proceeds to fire him and tell him to just walk away from there and he is fired.
The assistant hands me the phone and walks away towards the road. Brandon says that he will be back with the parts. We continue to wait with no updates until I text him at 8:45 wanting an update. I don’t hear anything until 9:33 when he called to say that he was on his way back after finally finding the last part he needed. I asked where he was and he stated he was (again) 25 minutes away.
At 10:15 he returned to our spot with yet another person in his truck. He started working on the trailer again with the new guy talking to us. The new guy said that he ran into Brandon while he was stopping by his house for parts. Now, keep in mind that he had every piece that he needed except the spindle nut at 6:15 when we talked. So he spent 4 hours looking for a spindle nut that he had at his house? Unlikely.
As Brandon is working he informs me that he didn’t find a spindle nut anywhere without buying the entire spindle for $300. I tell him that if he would have just told me that at 6 that I would have bought the entire spindle assembly at $300 instead of him driving around for 4 hours at $200 an hour. He then says that he never found the castle nut so what he is going to do is use one of his thread nuts as the spindle nut and will drill it and add a cotter pin like a spindle nut would have.
About this time I look over and Brandon’s assistant that he “fired” was standing at the end of the parking lot. I mention it to Brandon and I walk over to be near my wife in case anything happens. Brandon walks back with the assistant and he climbs in the truck. About 30 minutes later I look over and the assistant is working on my trailer once again. Evidently, the “firing” was for show and Brandon just didn’t care about that anymore.
They finally completed the repair and put the tire back on at 1:15 AM the next morning. For those of you following along at home, that is 14 hours after I called for assistance.
I know that is a lot so I will do a quick recap – Called at 11am, arrived at 2:10pm, left at 4:30pm, showed back up at 10:15pm, completed the job at 1:15am.
Now for the bill: $335 in parts. Call out, cleanup, and supply fee = $175. 8 hours of labor (while being on site for 5 total) $1600, Tap and Die was $1000, and then 240 miles of driving was $480. He then applied a discount of $390.22 for reasons unknown (I assume he knew I was going to be pissed) for a grand total of $3,423.76. I was not going to argue with anyone at 1:30 in the morning when it is myself and my wife with 3 random guys in a dark parking lot (one of which we know is on drugs) so I paid it and left.
I have since called 2 other trailer repair places that have informed me that their suggested action would have been to replace the axle entirely since the spindle was swollen. Their estimated costs ranged from $1500-$2000. That is the cost of the axle and about 1-2 hours work to replace it. How was this not Brandon’s first thought when the spindle was swollen? On Saturday afternoon when the swollen spindle was discovered, there were still places that we could have gotten the axle so we could have been back on the road by that evening and saved $1500 and several hours of us sitting in a dark, sketchy parking lot.
I truly believe that there were failures at several points here. Terry blowing us off for an hour and then passing us off, Brandon allowing people that are actively high on drugs to work for him, the owner of the roadside service company for blowing off the fact that his company sent a drug addict to us, and then Brandon AGAIN for seeing an opportunity to take advantage of someone in a tough spot. But again, we were in no position to argue about it in the middle of the night in an alley behind a strip mall with three random guys.
That’s the end of John’s recap – now back to me:
Once we were on the road again, we were really nervous about the repair (not sure why we would have doubts, right?) and we had nowhere to go. Because of all of the delays and being unable to reach the man who was supposed to be helping us, we hadn’t been able to call any campgrounds to make arrangements to stay overnight Saturday. We were only about 30 minutes from the park we had just left but we knew that they locked the gates overnight and we would be unable to get in.
We decided to start heading towards our next scheduled campground in West Virginia but we were way too tired and way too afraid of another issue popping up with the axle (it being dark, I wouldn’t be able to spot any smoke as easily) so we decided to just drive until we found a truck stop and try to park there for a few hours to sleep.
The truck stop was full.
John had found a campground about another 45 minutes past the truck stop and we headed there, hoping that we could figure something out. We stayed on the phone with each other the whole way, partly to keep each other awake and partly because our nerves and emotions were raw after the ordeal we had been through and it was just comforting to know that at least we were there for each other.
We pulled into Elkhorn Creek RV Park around 3am hoping for a miracle and they definitely delivered. Things were off to a great start when we didn’t encounter any kind of gate or anything blocking the driveway. Obviously the office was closed but John walked up to the door hoping for an emergency after-hours number to call for check-in. Instead, he found a list of open campsites. We chose one (which was even a pull through site with full hookup) and used the provided maps to find it. We pulled right in, hooked up the electric, and promptly passed out in the bed. It just felt so good to finally be able to let our guard down and sleep knowing that we were all safe for the night. We made sure to set an alarm so we could be up in time to shower and checkout on time. John walked down to the office to pay and he told them how thankful he was for their organization and planning, especially after the day we had. Since we didn’t arrive until 3am and were checking out by 11am, they even gave us a little bit of a discount. It meant so much and went a long way to restore our faith in humanity. We wish we could have spent more time there because it looked like a nice park but we needed to continue on to West Virginia to the park we had already paid for.
We also want to take a second to call out and thank a few friends for offering help to us while we were stranded. Karen (the same Karen that invited us to her Derby Party) offered to bring us food and asked if there was anything we needed while we were stuck. And our friend David (who lives in Louisville) offered us a place to sleep if we had to leave the tiny house at any point – and not just us but our animals as well. We know that we are certainly lucky to have so many amazing friends in our lives.
**We did call the owner of the company on Monday and advised him of all of this. He did say that he would reach out to Brandon and threaten to stop using him as a contractor if he didn’t issue a partial refund. A few hours later, we did receive a $900 refund to our credit card which still left the total about $500 over the high-end estimate of the other repair companies that we spoke to. **
