What Counts As A New Appliance

October 19th, 2011 by Potato

Wayfare saw an interesting ad for a house recently, claiming among other things, that there were 5 new appliances.

Now, this listing was very familiar: it was the house we’re renting now (and leaving soon). The thing is, we can’t figure out what the 5 new appliances could possibly be. What counts as an appliance? I guess we’ve got the dishwasher, stove, fridge, washer, dryer, and maybe the mini bar fridge in the basement. So 6 potential appliances that could make up the advertised 5. Except, only 2 of those are actually less than 3 years old (what I might consider “new” without stretching the truth too much): the dishwasher and the mini bar fridge. Maybe the fridge and stove are new-ish: they’re still in decent shape, but even though I haven’t searched too hard for a date of manufacture, I’d guess with a fair bit of confidence that they’re at least 5 years old, and likely more than 10. Not exactly new.

Even then, that only brings us to 4 (mini-fridge, fridge, stove, dishwasher). Neither the washer or dryer can count by any rational use of the word “new” — they’re possibly older than I am.

So what’s the 5th appliance? We’re trying to figure it out. There are some straightforward answers: perhaps the landlord is planning on replacing some of those appliances so they will be new for the next tenants. Maybe he’s counting the air conditioner, or the new doors we installed. Perhaps the medicine cabinet? More troubling answers might be if he just recently counted appliances when visiting, and is including our stuff like the microwave, storage freezer, or toaster oven that we bought for ourselves (and will be taking with us). Perhaps he’s confusing “new” with “working” and is counting the ancient washer and dryer.

Or maybe it’s just an honest error, which reinforces the need to take ads with a grain of salt.

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