Bloggers like me have to choose our subjects to write about with care.
Until noon today, I was pondering between a $300 million Salem bond measure, advice on who to vote for in the midterms, and the increased risk of nuclear war due to Putin's Ukraine threats.
But after Tim Paquin of Precision Garage Door Service diagnosed what had caused our garage door opener to stop working, I realized that this was my chance to contribute to the accumulated store of knowledge regarding garage door opener repairs.
In short, consider that a stink bug is the culprit. Here's what Paquin found after taking a look inside the opener in a quest to learn why it had no electrical power.
That stink bug must have really had a grudge against my wife and me, because the repair guy said that the bug managed to fry itself on the part of the circuit board that controls the power supply.
At first I thought this was funny.
When I learned how much this damn stink bug was going to cost me, the hilarity of the moment was considerably reduced: $75 service call + $304 Linear circuit board + $99 operator service and programming - $48 senior discount = $430.
Sadly, there was no discount for a stink bug committing suicide on the very worst part of the circuit board to die on (from my perspective; maybe the stink bug had a glorious final exit).
Stink bugs have been an annoying part of our life here in rural south Salem, Oregon for quite a few years. It seems like forever, but a Wikipedia article says that they reached Oregon only in 2009. Mostly they cluster on our windows on warm days in late summer or early fall.
Some get inside. We've found that the BugZooka bug catcher, a wonderful invention that lets us suck stink bugs up with ease (unlike flies, they are easy to sneak up on) is the best way to deal with them. A BugZooka is kept handy in a corner of our house.
Stink bugs are adept at getting inside a house or garage. My wife had gotten rid of lots of them in our garage, but obviously we missed the one that cost us $430.
I guess I could ask our State Farm agent if they offer insurance for stink bugs that cause fatal damage to a circuit board, but I suspect their underwriting department doesn't have enough data to calculate the minute odds of this happening.
Unfortunately, it happened to us.
Comments