More disappointment

I'm very disappointed in Petco. They sold us the aquarium that broke, but won't help fix the mess. They say we must claim with the aquarium manufacturer. We're doing that, and the manufacturer has been more helpful, so I won't mention their name.

My problem? Sure, the glass may have had some inherent weakness that caused a stress crack, and that could have happened in manufacturing. It could also have been due to mistreatment in the Petco store. Petco isn't doing anything to help, despite their contribution to the problem. When they insisted they wouldn't do anything beyond a refund of the actual purchase price, we asked why they didn't stand behind their products. They said they do. We asked how that could be the case, since they weren't helping repair the result of a defective product. They had no answer to that.

Several Facebook friends have already read what happened and won't be using Petco anymore. Some were waffling, since they'd already heard of Petco's poor customer service (I hadn't, but now I've experienced it first hand and am very disappointed). They commented that was the final straw, and they wouldn't be purchasing with Petco.

Finally, while I don't want to contribute to the litigiousness of our society, I think we have a reasonable case on this one. We tried to be very reasonable. We haven't set out to cause Petco any harm, we've just asked for help fixing the damage caused by the defective product they sold us. Still, our daughter watched her pets die as we frantically worked to save our floor (we hope--it still needs to be inspected). I was called home early from work. There's been a lot of stress so far. If we did sue, I see it as likely we'd win. How much more would that cost than simply helping? I don't know, but I'm tempted to do it just so they change their policies and stand behind their products and no family has to go through what we just did. The situation is bad enough, but add poor customer service and the cold shoulder from Petco, and that makes it all the worse.

I'm kind of rambling, but it's been a rough week. I just want to know my floor's okay and to get the sitting room back to the way it was (minus a fish tank).

I am happy that we've decided we'll keep fish again. No, not in the sitting room. Nor in any carpeted area ever again! I had thought the only reasonable place to have a tank was the sitting room where we could really enjoy it. We're planning to redecorate Bubbles' sewing room and make it a sewing and pet room, with fish, a hamster, and maybe a parakeet. We'll use the room more and Spawn will be able to learn about pets. Best yet, it's a converted garage with a cement floor, so although we'll avoid spills, it won't be a catastrophe if one happens.

At this point, my business is likely to go to Pet Smart since Petco has demonstrated that they don't need my business.

Devastation

Before I start, I should say that things could be much, much worse. I feel very blessed that they aren't. Nobody has cancer. Nobody's injured. The house is still standing. Still, this is a hard trial to deal with. That new fish tank we were so excited about? Yeah, last night I got a call at 4:00 P.M. My frantic wife let me know it was leaking. My boss gave me the go ahead, and I drove home as quickly as I was safely and legally able to (which turns out to be very fast, actually).

I got home to find nearly no water in the tank. The fish were expiring. I quickly grabbed the tank and got it outside. Then the stand. Adrenaline works. They didn't feel like they weighed anything. Later when I moved them to a more permanent location, they certainly felt heavy again.

Pulling back the carpet and running fans wasn't going to be enough to save the floor, so we had to cut the carpet out, and pull up the pad. That just wasn't easy to do. It really hurts to have to cut out carpet to save your home. Still, carpet is cheaper than floor, so we got it out, and quickly.

A visual inspection under the house today didn't turn up any sign of moisture through the sub floor, so hopefully several days of drying will do the trick and we can just recarpet. We've already filed an incident report with the store that sold the tank. A massive crack opened up in the bottom of the tank. That seems impossible, as the tank was properly supported on the stand designed for it, but that's what happened. It must have had a hairline fracture in the glass, or chip, or something when it was sold to us, though I visually inspected the tank before filling and didn't see any problems. I'm told it can be very small and still sufficient to cause a problem in a filled tank.

I hope the store will make this right. They're already offering to refund all the money we spent with them, and that's a start, but they shouldn't have sold an old or damaged tank, so we'll expect them to make any repairs needed to the home. I don't like costing a store money in these economically difficult times, but this wasn't our fault, and we couldn't afford to fix this.

The potential damage to the house is scary, but the loss of the pets was very sad. We bought the tank just 11 days ago. The fish already felt like our pets, though. R.I.P. Blackie (our black molly), Clovis (a black finned orange platy that looked a bit tigerish), Lightning, Sally, Kiesha (our frog), our two platys, our two guppies (one of which was pregnant and seemed to be nearing her time to birth), and our two neon tetras. I know it seems silly and sentimental, but you were fun to watch, and you'll be missed.

Perhaps worst of all is that although I know a faulty tank is rare, I don't see us feeling safe with a fish tank in the house again. I know this one was probably a display model that was out for years, and may have suffered who knows what in that time. Still, I could never put another fish tank in the room this one was in, just in case, and that's really the only room where we'd sit and enjoy them the way we did. With the carpet gone, we can't even use the sitting room now. That sounds fancy, but if you saw it, you'd understand. It's not big, and it's not fancy, but it was nice, and a relaxing place to do some family reading and fish watching. It really is a loss.

Wow. This really hurts to look at. Here's the room just a few days ago:



Here are some shots of the affected area and the carpet and padding afterward:

Accidentally deleted these while cleaning out the album. I forgot I'd linked them.

Here's what happened to the tank:

Note: Same thing as above. Oops.

These photos are a bit painful to look at. Spawn was so happy reading and looking at fish. Hopefully soon we'll at least be reading in there, even if we don't feel good about ever exposing that floor to 30 gallons of water again.

My suggestion: never buy the display model. Ever. I would guess it had been treated roughly, had things dropped in, etc. When its full load of 28 gallons was introduced, the weak spots took the stress for as long as possible, then they cracked.

I'm glad it didn't happen earlier in the day, when I was in Delaware, or when we were all away, but this was bad enough.