Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Critter Nation

Ever since it's release my rat friends have been raving about the Critter Nation, a cage by Midwest. There was an online sale and I decided to get the cage. I should have stuck with Martin's. The huge thing arrived. It was huge and heavy. I was barely able to get it in the house! I opened it in the kitchen and took it piece by piece upstairs. There wasn't enough room in the rat room-so I started putting it together in the library. It's on casters, so I'd just wheel it across the hall when I rearranged the rat room. The thing was a nightmare to put together. Then I discovered that 3 of the 4 side panels had major issues. The next day I called Midwest. Right on the instructions it says to call them if there's a problem. When I described the damage, they said it sounded like freight damage and I had to call the place where I got it. Of course, they couldn't just send me the 3 panels, oh no. I had to take apart everything I had put together, bring it all downstairs and repack it. They'd then take it away. However, since I'll be getting babies, I didn't want to wait to get a new cage-so I ordered and paid for another one and will get paid back from the first one once the "investigation" is over. This arrangement took over an hour with multiple phone calls to both the online store and the manufacturer. I missed the UPS man twice. On the third time he took the old one and gave me the new one. I put it together last night. It was still a pain. I had to use pliers as the tabs and things were bent out of shape. I also wound up with 2 extra pieces. I have no idea where they go and I hope the monstrosity is safe without them. I need to make room in the rat room and put the thing in there and rearrange. On the whole , it was a nightmare and I DON'T recommend the Critter Nation!

1 comment:

Pidge said...

I"ve always said that it takes two people to put one of those cages together. Sorry you had to fight with it yourself! See, if you were still in TX, you'd have had people to call for help ;)

I bet that after you live with it for a while, you'll come to appreciate it. I still think mine is awesome, even though I've broken it.