Sure, the Redbirds just won their home opener against last year’s World Series Champs but, hey, we’re talking about the Chicago Cubs for crying out loud. On the other hand, we at Fix St Louis work on home openers just about every day, and we have never been defeated. Not once.
Doorbells
Once upon a time, front doors had all kinds of uses. They were a place to bend down and pick-up newspapers, Yellow Pages, and milk that came in glass bottles, and to greet overly-friendly Fuller Brush Men, encyclopedia salesmen, and Avon ladies. But these days, people seem to forget they even HAVE front doors. They always enter through the garage. And, they’re so frightened by what they watch on the 10 o’clock news that when the doorbell rings they hide behind furniture, lest the possible ax murderer outside spot them through the window.
But let’s face it, people. Unless you own a dog, you NEED a working doorbell. Or you’ll never meet your neighbors. Or, the kids next door. Or your neighbors’ kids selling cookies and unwanted magazine subscriptions for fundraisers. Or that grubby man with missing teeth who comes around each year to sell mulch.
The state of doorbells that we at Fix St Louis see every day is nothing less than shocking. I swear, about half of them don’t seem to work at all, or the plastic button is cracked open, exposing a teeny-weeny light bulb. Some houses confront you with a wide array of choices, including a non-working intercom station with a button that may or may not be a doorbell. Or a large control panel with the Nu-Tone brand name that looks like it was ripped off the set of Disney’s Carousel of Progress and includes a blender, an AM radio, and can spin 45 RPM vinyl records. BTW, nothing on that control panel works either.
Give us a call, and you will learn how easy and inexpensive it is to get your doorbell working again. Usually we can use the existing wires, but the new wireless models work great, too. We can even install integrated video cameras so you can remotely see who’s at your door, with the small downside that so can the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies who like to keep tabs on who you’ve been meeting.
Garage Door Openers
Scary, but true. The average homeowner is never more than one step away from a barbaric world in which they’d have to stop their car on the driveway in the rain, step out of the car, walk to the garage door, pull it up, walk back to their car, drive in, then reach up and pull the garage door down again. The HORROR!
We at Fix St Louis can do a number of things to help. We replace garage door openers, as well as their light bulbs. We can install a dedicated electrical outlet nearby so it conforms to building codes, and eliminate that extension cord tacked to the ceiling that you know is all wrong. And, we can install keypads outside that open the garage door, so that when you unlock the door to your house inside, no one needs a key, not even kids who might lose it. That means you can toss that fake rock in your yard that has a compartment for a key, and that is often so conspicuous that it fools no one. Not even woodpeckers scared by fake plastic owls. Who, truth be told, really don’t fall for that trick anymore, either.
And, oh yeah, we can change your door locks, too.
Just think about how far we’ve come in America with our home openers. Only 100 years ago nobody in St Louis even locked their doors. It must be true — I heard it at Disney’s Carousel of Progress.
Dr Steve
Fix St Louis
314-434-4100