Moving into a real house has its perks for sure. Will and I now share a master bedroom instead of a closet, and we sleep on a real bed instead of a futon, and I can walk to the bathroom naked without fear of running into one of my other roommates. Not to mention the 2-car garage, backyard patio, and 5-minute bike ride to the climbing gym.

And… a HOT TUB!  Under a little wooden cabana with a built-in bar and built-in speakers.  So cliché, yet so, so awesome.

hottub

When we moved in, the landlord said it was in working condition, so we figured that between 5 of us engineers we should be able to get some jets going. That was our first mistake. After searching for an “on” button for about 15 minutes, we finally found the breaker on the side of the house that corresponded to the hot tub pumps and built-in speaker. Rushing to the control panel, we turned on the pumps and…they crapped out after 1.5 seconds, and also still had a bunch of air in them. Shit.

My roommate Matt (i.e. Roommatt) then went to check the pump and bleed the air. He promptly found a disintegrated O-ring and then broke a valve. Double shit. O-rings are easy to find, but we had to order the special valve piece from Canada, and the company forced us to buy expedited shipping. When the part hadn’t arrived in five days, we assumed that the carrier goose got lost.

When we finally got the parts and put everything back together, the control panel still would only work for a few seconds before failing. At this point, we decided to call in the hot tub expert who found $1000 worth of damages from the previous owner. Triple shit. We promptly told our landlady that we had called the mechanic right away instead of trying to do things ourselves, but we’re still waiting to see if and when the landlady decides to fix the hot tub.  Until then, we still have a really cool cabana!