Homeowning for Dummies

Or maybe just common sense 101?

A few months ago, I tossed the top of my motion sensor activated trash can lid on to the floor one day when changing the trash bag.  It never worked quite right again.  It seemed like the mechanism inside the lid didn't have enough torque to open it completely.  Every so often it would open all the way, but just once.  I thought I had broken it when I tossed it to the ground.  The hubster said it was batteries.  I dismissed him because we had just changed the batteries and the last set lasted for over a year.

The other day it just completely died, so I thought I would try to change the batteries.  Even if didn't open all the way, a little crack at least allowed me to push it completely open.  Once I opened up the battery compartment, it all became very apparent what the problem was.  Two of the battery ends were completely corroded.  I'm guessing that the connection was shoddy and that's what was causing the malfunction.  Since we only had two batteries and there were 4 batteries to change, I chose to only change the corroded ones and rearranged the batteries.  And VOILA, it worked.

So yeah, lessons learned... don't always disregard your spouse and change the batteries.