Gassing Linda

When we bought the van we asked the sellers what needed doing, they said (amongst a couple of other minor bits) that the freezer didn't work - thats interesting, with these type of combined unit fridges if the freezer doesn't work then most likely the rest doesn't, However they were so vague with the questions we were asking as to voltage etc I could see that they really didn't have a clue about how everything worked on the van - being an American RV then everything was initially 110 volts, we were trying to find out what had been converted to 240 volts but they really didn't know the difference between 110 volts & 240 volts and what voltage anything worked on.

There were new frigs going on Ebay for just on 50% of normal retail price but they were running out fast, we didn't want to buy a new one if the existing one could be fixed, but we couldn't get any sensible answers from the sellers (remember we hadn't seen the van at this stage) - then the new ones at the knock-down price ran out so we would have to fix the old one even though a new unit for it could cost more than we could have bought a new one for.

The Frig

When we got to the van, though it was actually much better then we expected, we found that they had put gaffer tape over the frig doors to the panels either side to hold the door shut, we presumed because the locks weren't holding the door shut whilst they were driving or for transporting it to us.

So after we'd been in the van a few days checking everything out as much as we could we put the frig on to see if it worked.

About three hours later Linda opened the door to clean it - and copped a full blast of ammonia directly into her lungs!!. Talk about scary, THIS WAS the best murder attempt., She was crying out for help ( in fact - weakly asking for assistance - ed), but we were in the middle of a paddock with no-one around for miles, Paul didn't know what to do, by the time an ambulance got there she would have been dead if we couldn't get oxygen into her lungs. Fortunately after a minute or so she was able to breathe again. ( such poor reporting by the original writer - it may have appeared to those not affected as a minute or so - however, to that person not able to breathe, it felt considerably longer - ed).

So now we see why they had put tape over the frig door - that could have been really nasty (indeed was), if only they'd had the decency and honesty to tell us then the risk to Linda's health would never have happened.

Fortunately when I rang the supplier to see if by any chance someone hadn't paid for the heavily discounted ones, he had just one left so we rapidly got that delivered & then installed it (they are combined 240v/ 12v/ gas, you can't put an ordinary frig in, the new one was slightly smaller so we had to make a frame to hold it & get rubber door-seals from a large hardware shop to make it airtight)

Next - Hanging on a gate