If you've ever despaired of getting your vacuum cleaner fixed or thought that your broken lamp was a lost cause, there's hope. A worldwide movement is trying to reform our throwaway approach to possessions.
The movement's foundation is the Repair Cafe, a local meeting place that brings together people with broken items and repair coaches, or volunteers, with the expertise to fix them.
[...] "One of the things that makes it challenging and interesting is that we don't know what people are going to bring," Ray Pfau, an organizer of a Repair Cafe in Bolton, Mass., said in an email.
Lamps top the list of items brought in to be repaired, followed by vacuum cleaners, Mr. Wackman said. The types of repairs offered vary by location and reflect the particular talent in a community, he said.
New Paltz [in upstate New York] has a repair person with a national reputation as a doll expert. It also has a "Listening Corner" with a psychiatric nurse "because being listened to is a 'reparative act,' " he said.
The cafes invite people to bring their "beloved but broken" possessions to the gatherings, which are hosted in church basements, libraries, town halls and senior centers. The cafes make no guarantees that items will be fixed.
"All we can guarantee is that you will have an interesting time," Mr. Wackman said.
The gatherings tend to draw professionals, retirees and hobbyists who volunteer as repair coaches.
None in my area but I would be tempted to show up and help. I like to fix things and have a decent success rate, just coaxed some more life out of our ~30 year old garage door opener.
Similar article at: http://www.digitaltrends.com/home/repair-cafe/ and the main website is at: https://repaircafe.org/en/about/ (also available for NL, FR, DE & ES)
(Score: 2) by tekk on Tuesday January 24 2017, @06:35PM
Even those lamps can be....interesting.
One particular model of lamp you get from Walmart will die if you unplug it after it's been plugged in for too long. Don't ask me how. All the connections are solid, my only possible thought is that they do something fucked with the wiring inside the case to self-destruct. Something something planned obsolescence...
(Score: 1) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Tuesday January 24 2017, @07:31PM
Well the filament in the bulb could be damaged by moving, but I assume you would have checked that.
(Score: 2) by tekk on Tuesday January 24 2017, @08:18PM
Yep, tried with different bulbs. I'm keeping it around until I finally bother to pick up a multimeter to test continuity.