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from the making-broken-vacuum-cleaners-suck-again dept.
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 Sulla on Wednesday January 25 2017, @02:28AM
Going to have to agree with you on this. With the exception of anything that I would need to program I have not come across something that I could not fix or at least break until its completely irrepairable. There are some things that I do not feel I have the time to fix though. I recently had the brushes fail on a very old sander, my backup very old sanders wiring frayed and failed. Both are fixable, brushes were on backorder and not expected to be restocked and who knows how long fixing the wiring will take me. Had to get stuff done for christmas so bought another sander. I wll fix both of them, but my primary function is not fixing things it is doing things. I will always prefer to fix rather than be wasteful but if it is impeeding my other projects I will be buying a replacement and fixing it when I have time.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam