Thursday, December 13, 2012

Squeaky Wheel #11: Ask and Ye Shall Receive

We purchased a First Years Jet Stroller about a year ago. It's super affordable, light and easy for navigating around NYC - I still don't understand how those folks with huge $1,000 strollers get on and off the subway!

If you saw my Instagram stream last week though you may have noticed something weird about it:


Do you see it? The handlebars are missing their foam covers. They had started coming off a few months ago and Mr. Love Bird temporarily fixed them with electrical tape, but it turned super sticky. He used that instead of duct tape so it would camouflage better (this was before I remembered Duck makes it in various colors!). Well, it was an awful mess so at last he just ripped it off foam covers and all, of course without consulting me first about how this would affect my comfort level as I'm the one pushing the stroller 99% of the time O_o

With my gloves on it was making handling the stroller really tricky so I turned to Amazon to find replacement covers and saw they were just over $6 a piece. Seriously?! For a stroller that cost about $35 to me that was outrageous so I emailed the company and they wrote back in less than 48 hours that they were putting them in the mail for me:


A few days later they showed up and now we're back in business!

I have to add that I tried this method for replacement straws for Nia's Born Free Twist 'N Pop Straw Cup, but they told me it would cost me $1.50 per straw. Didn't hurt to ask though!

What slightly damaged items in your home might this "ask and receive" tactic work with?

{You can check out more posts in the Squeaky Wheel series here.}