Mr. Rooter, chapter 2

Way back in February, I wrote about my unhappy experience with a plumbing outfit called Mr. Rooter. You can read that post here, but the story in a nutshell is that a Mr. Rooter plumber showed up at our house to clear a clogged drain, and collected $492 for his work. The next morning the drain was clogged again, the plumber returned, but said it would be another $600-$800 to clean the drain, and he got belligerent when I suggested that I should get credit for the money I had paid the day before. He eventually left, and we had a local plumber clear the drain (which has had no problems since then.)

Fast forward now to sometime in March, after I posted my blog about the incident. I got a call from a warm, friendly woman in Mr. Rooter's office in Rochester. She couldn't have been nicer, and said that they had reviewed my situation. She stressed that what I had written was "very accurate," and she apologized over and over again for the trouble. She said the plumber in question had been spoken to, that he had been told he acted inappropriately, that he should have honored the coupon I offered, and that all Mr. Rooter services come with a free return visit if the problem persists. She apologized again and again, and said that I would be receiving a refund.

It was GREAT customer service, and I thanked her for her time.

Then a month went by...no refund.

And another month went by...no refund.

Finally, on May 18, I called back to Mr. Rooter, using the phone # that they had called me from on my cell phone. Again, I got to talk to a very pleasant woman, and explained my situation. I said that I didn't know who had called me, but that it had been someone from this number. I had been promised a refund, and that I hadn't heard anything back in two months. Could I please speak with the woman who called me back in March?

This warm, friendly woman asked me my name, and I could hear her punching something up on her computer. Apparently she started reading some notes that were associated with me, and said something like, "Oh, the person you talked to back then doesn't work here anymore."

I said that I understood, and explained the situation to her. She said, "Yes, it looks like you were supposed to be sent a refund. I'm going to talk to the owner, and one of us will call you back."

Well, it's now been another two months, and I still haven't gotten my call back from Mr. Rooter. So apparently are they notso-hotso at plumbing work, but they aren't all that great at following up with their customers, either.

I'll keep you posted.

Blood on San Francisco's hands

It was three years ago this week that a beautiful, brilliant young woman named Clarisse Grimes was killed in St. Paul by an illegal immigrant who had already been deported, but returned to the U.S. illegally. I wrote about Clarisse and her tragic end here.

So it was "deja vu all over again" last week when another beautiful young woman, Kate Steinle, was shot to death by an illegal immigrant on the San Francisco waterfront. The killer, Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez, has several felony convictions on his rap sheet, and had been deported five times, but continued to illegally enter the U.S.

All of this was known at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which recently had custody of Lopez-Sanchez, but turned him over to San Francisco authorities so they could prosecute him on a drug charge. ICE also filed a "detainer," instructing San Francisco authorities to turn Lopez-Sanchez when they were through with him. Here's where the outrage begins.

San Francisco ignored the detainer, and let Lopez-Sanchez walk free. Why? Because San Francisco is a "sanctuary city," where officials have decided they will ignore requests from immigration so that illegal immigrants are free to move about their city. Lopez-Sanchez has reportedly admitted that he returned to San Francisco specifically because he knew of the sanctuary city status, and knew he wouldn't be hassled about being in the country illegally.

Oh, but that's just loopy, crazy, San Francisco you might think. Surely no other big city is dumb enough to hang out a "Welcome" sign for criminals from other countries.

Wrong. There are more than 200 "sanctuary cities" in the United States, including - here in Minnesota - both Minneapolis and St. Paul. That's why the guy who killed Clarisse Grimes was on the street: He had been arrested for driving without a license just a short while before killing Clarisse, but St. Paul's sanctuary city policy let him go.

Imagine that: The same government that expects you to pay your taxes, obey the speed limit, shovel your sidewalk, etc., etc., etc., suddenly decides that the law doesn't apply to them if an illegal immigrant is involved.

I'm undecided as to whom to support for President next year, but the first candidate who pledges to withhold all federal funding from sanctuary cities has my vote.

Meeting - and saying goodbye to - Mr. Rooter

Regular readers will know that over the years I've used the blog a number of times to point out remarkable customer service, whether it came from Sprint, Northwest Airlines or whomever. This, however, is NOT one of those stories.

In front of our house sits a beautiful dogwood tree that is at least 40 feet high and spreads wonderful, cooling shade in the summer over the entire house. The downside of this great tree is that it has a deep, complex root structure that sometimes causes problems with my plumbing.

The problem first reared its head about five years ago, on the same weekend that my daughter Erin was getting married. We woke up to a basement floor that was flooded with some really yucky, smelly backed-up water just a day before a number of guests and family would be at the house. A quick call to a plumbing acquaintance brought some help, and was quite instructive. He ran a camera down the offending drain and showed me how roots from the tree had worked their way through the underground pipe that runs from the house to the street, and he then used something called a power scrubber to blow away the roots and open the drain. He also explained that this was only a temporary solution, and that over the years, the roots would grow back and eventually cause the same problem.

Fast forward five years, to a couple of weeks ago, when the drain began to back up onto the basement floor again.

Luckily - or at least we thought it was lucky - we had just received a postcard in the mail from an outfit called "Mr. Rooter." It had a local phone number, as well as a coupon that promised $51 off of "any plumbing service." So we decided to give them a call.

Within a few hours a fellow from Mr. Rooter arrived. I explained the root history problem and he said that for about $350, he could run a cutting blade down the drain that would cut away some of the roots and get the water flowing again. It wouldn't be a permanent solution, he explained, and said that eventually the pipe would need "hydro scrubbing" again. Which I understood, and acknowledged that we would have to have that done later, perhaps this summer.

So he went to work, and within a few minutes he said there was a problem. On the basement floor there is a metal cap that needs to be opened in order to access the drain, and he said he was unable to open that cap because it had become "fused" to the floor. Instead, he would have to take out the downstairs toilet and access the drain pipe through there, and it was going to be another $145 or so. Again, I said "fine" and left him to work.

A couple hours later he finished. It was, he explained, a difficult job because the roots were getting thicker, and the hydro scrubbing should definitely come sooner, rather than later. For the time being, however, he said the drain was "50 percent clear" and would at least get our daily plumbing functioning normally again. I was happy with the service, and we sat down at the kitchen table to settle up the bill.

Except there was no bill to show me, because the Mr. Rooter guy keeps track of everything on a little tablet computer, and without a printer, there was no paperwork. But he said the total came to $512, and that didn't seem horribly out of line and I was okay with that. As I took out my checkbook I showed him the coupon THAT HIS COMPANY HAD SENT TO US and said, "Well, this will take a little bite out of it."

No, he explained, that coupon wasn't valid because "that's only for plumbing." I sort of half-chuckled at the notion that taking out a toilet, cleaning a drain and re-installing the toilet wasn't "plumbing," (What WAS it? Carpentry? Masonry?) but I said okay and started to write the check.

He then said that there WAS an internet coupon that would let him take $20 off the bill. That mollified me a little, and so I wrote a check for $492 and some change. He couldn't give me a receipt, however, because all his "paperwork" was on the tablet, but he offered to email me a copy of the bill later. Again, I was fine with that.

Later that night the email arrived, and I opened the attachment to look at the bill.What jumped out at me was the first item on the bill, which was a $15 "fuel surcharge."

I'm familiar, of course, with fuel surcharges. UPS, which I use to ship a lot of items, will tack on a fuel surcharge when gas prices get up in the $4.00 range. The airlines, and some trucking companies, use similar charges, and I'm okay with that during times of high fuel prices.

But on the day in question, gas here in the Red Wing area was $1.89 a gallon. Not exactly sky-high prices. And Mr. Rooter had come from Zumbrota, a town about 20 miles away, meaning that even if his truck got a measly 10 miles per gallon, the round trip had cost less than $8.00 in fuel, which makes a $15 "surcharge" seem a little shady. So now, in my mind, there were two little "strikes" against my Mr. Rooter experience - the failure to honor their own coupon, and a fuel surcharge.

Strike three arrived two days later, when the basement floor was once again flooded from the same backed-up drain. Now I was out $492 - including the "fuel surcharge" - and I still had sewage in my basement. Once again, the call went out to Mr. Rooter, and my expectation was to hear something like, "Oh, we're sorry, we'll get right out there and fix it."

That's not what I got.

What I got instead was a promise that the NEXT day, Mr. Rooter might be able to get someone out there in the afternoon, and a warning that in the meantime I should be careful not to run the dishwasher, washing machine, or take a shower.

On the scheduled afternoon, I had to be at a client's office in St. Paul, but Penny was home with her day-care kids and I asked the Mr. Rooter scheduler if she could have the plumber call me when he arrived at the house so I could discuss what we were going to do. And shortly after noon he did call to say he was parked in front of the house. He also said that he had brought along his "hydro scrubbing" machine and was ready to clean out the drain. I asked for a ballpark estimate on the cost, so that I could have Penny ready to write a check. He said it would be "$611 for the first two hours, and maybe about $800 if it takes me longer."

Again, I wasn't terribly upset by the number, but I did ask if I was going to get some sort of allowance for the $492 I had just paid him for work that only left me with a still-clogged drain. That's when he started to get belligerent.

"No," he said. "I told you it needed hydro scrubbing and that you had a real root problem. This is a $50,000 machine, and it costs money to run it and that's the price."

I told him that - as someone who own and runs a business - I completely understood the cost, but I also understood that I felt an obligation to stand behind my work, and I would have a hard time charging one of my clients if my work had been unsatisfactory. Shouldn't a "50% clean" drain stay clear for more than 48 hours? 

"I never said it was 50% clear," he said, in what was a bald-faced lie. "I said right on the write-up that it needed hydro scrubbing."

Of course, if there even was such a "write-up," I never saw it. The only paperwork I had gotten was an invoice with a fuel surcharge on it.

At that point, his attitude and demeanor had gotten so hostile that I decided I didn't want him in the house with Penny and her day-care kids, especially when I wasn't around, so I told him "never mind, thanks for coming out and good bye."

Later that afternoon I called an acquaintance of mine that owns a plumbing company in Red Wing to ask his advice. I hadn't called him originally because I was under the impression that they only did commercial and construction plumbing. Turns out I was wrong, and that they do residential work as well. "We'll come out and power scrub it for you," he said. "It will probably be about $400 and it will get you by a few more years before you have to do something about the pipe."

A couple of his guys showed up the next morning - removed the floor cap that Mr. Rooter guy said was "fused" to the floor - and blew the roots out of my pipe. It was quick, clean and simple, and hundreds cheaper than what Mr. Rooter wanted to charge.  Most importantly, it actually worked, and the drain is flowing free again.

I asked my friend about how I should address the long-term problem of the pipe and the tree roots. Mr. Rooter guy had said they could install a liner in the pipe that would keep the roots out, but that they would need 2-3 days, and it would cost between $4,000 and $6,000. My friend just chuckled.

"We do a lot of jobs where we have to take care of problems from those liners. We'll come out and dig up the old pipe, put a new one in and your problem will be solved forever," he said. "It will take us an afternoon, and I would guess about $3,000."

So I guess this summer or next, we'll have that done, but in the meantime I'm out $492 for a plumbing call that solved nothing. I guess conciliation court is my only option, but of course that means giving up a day to file papers, then go back for court, trying to collect, etc. I'll see if it fits in the schedule, or else I may have to just chalk it up as tuition in the school of "Don't ever call Mr. Rooter." Consider yourself warned.

No Time for Hamas

As I age, I tend to see fewer issues in black-and-white terms, and instead see more shades of grey. Maybe that means I'm getting squishy, or maybe it means I'm maturing. I guess I'm not sure.

One area in which I have NOT gone soft, however, is Israel. As many of you know, I was privileged to serve as Press Secretary to Sen. Rudy Boschwitz for a number of years, and while I learned much from Rudy, probably the most important thing I took away from my time with him was the absolute moral imperative of supporting Israel.

So when a local idiot named Bill Habedank wrote a letter to the local paper a couple weeks ago calling Israel's war of self-defense a "genocide," I snapped. The result of my snapping is the letter below, which ran in the Red Wing Republican Eagle on August 13.

Red Wing Republican Eagle
Aug. 13, 2014

I have never seen as much bigotry and ignorance stuffed into one letter as that of Bill Habedank on Aug. 5.

To compare the courageous, embattled people of Israel to genocidal Nazis is not only profoundly ignorant, but it is also deeply disrespectful to the memory of the more than six million Jews killed by Nazi Germany. That Holocaust is the main reason the state of Israel was established by the United Nations in 1948.

In the current conflict, Habedank is apparently rooting for the Palestinians and their leadership in the form of Hamas. Hamas, of course, is designated as a terrorist organization by the United States, and the Hamas charter calls for the “eradication” of Jews and the nation of Israel. Apparently Habedank agrees with that sentiment.

Hamas, like most bands of terrorists, is guilty of numerous war crimes, including:

-      --  Hiding rockets, armaments and its own leadership among civilian populations;

-      -- Firing rockets at civilian airports

-      -- Using women and children as human shields

-      --  Fighting without uniforms, disguising themselves as civilians who conducting terror operations

In the past few years, Hamas has taken the billions in aid given to them and, rather than build homes, schools, hospitals or mosques, they have used the money to build tunnels into Israel to be used to kill and kidnap Israeli civilians. At the same time, they’ve fired thousands of rockets into Israel – all aimed at civilian populations – firing the rockets from next to schools, hospitals and other civilian structures, thereby endangering their own people.

Habedank decries “mass murder” in the Middle East, but the only ones attempting mass murder are the Hamas terrorists, whose stated aim is to “wipe Israel off the map.” Habedank certainly has the right to speak his mind, but civilized people in a wonderful community like Red Wing should be embarrassed that his type of anti-Semitism and bigotry are on display among us.

Tim Droogsma

Red Wing, MN

Are we overheating, or are we freezing? I guess we're not sure.

Last week the singer/scientist/genius Bob Geldof announced that because of - of course, global warming - all of mankind was going to be dead by 2030, just 17 years from now. 

If true, of course, it would make it much easier to plan for my retirement, but I'm just not quite willing to take old Bobby's word for it. I've been able to live long enough to see environmental predictions come and go, and to realize that most of them - including those from Al Gore and the rest of the faith-based "climate change" community - are absolute hokum. To remind you of how useful "settled science" can be, here - courtesy of the Watts Up With That? blog - are some predictions from Earth Day, 1970. Lots of keen foresight here. Enjoy.


“We have about five more years at the outside to do something.”
• Kenneth Watt, ecologist

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
• George Wald, Harvard Biologist

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation.”
• Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.”
• Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….”
• Life Magazine, January 1970

“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.”
• Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, secretary of the Smithsonian Institute, believes that in 25 years, somewhere between 75 and 80 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.”
• Sen. Gaylord Nelson

And my personal favorite:

“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years. If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.”
• Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

The Democrats hate you and want you to die

It was a big week for the forces of "tolerance" and "diversity" on the political left.

First comes the story of the Communications Chair of the Democratic Party in Sacramento, California. Allan Brauer feels really, really strongly about Obamacare. So strongly, in fact, that his wish for those who oppose Obamacare is that their "children all die from debilitating, painful and incurable diseases." Sounds like a nice guy, eh? Read the entire sorry story here.

Meanwhile, at the University of Kansas, Journalism professor David Guth feels really, really strongly about gun control. So strongly, in fact, that after the shootings at the Washington Navy Yard, his wish for those who support the Second Amendment is that "Next time, let it be YOUR sons and daughters. Shame on you. May God damn you.” You can read his story here, and his reward from KU is a paid vacation.

Good thing they're the party of "compassion."

Hypocrite alert!

Sorry about the blogging blackout...vacation, work, school (I'm a student again...will tell the story later), State Fair and a son who broke his heel and needed surgery have all slowed me down.

The most comical event of the recent past is watching the President fumble, bumble and stumble his way around on Syria. One minute we have to attack quickly, then it doesn't matter if we wait a month and today's position seems to be that, hey, maybe we don't even need to do anything. It's all just a reminder that this guy is in so far over his head that he can hardly catch a breath. Serves us right for making a diversity hire in the nation's top job.

Almost as fun is listening to the deafening silence from the celebrities who trampled each other rushing to get to a microphone to denounce George Bush as an immoral warmonger, but who now have clammed up when their boy wants to start throwing Cruise missiles around. Click here for a nice gallery.