The poorly-plumbed water softener
Almost 3 years ago, I purchased an "as-is" house that was a foreclosure. It had sat empty for about a year before going on the market.
There was a water softener already in the house, but the bank's realtor said that there was no guarantee that it worked. It wasn't hooked up but was sitting in place where the water softener piping was.
(There is a bathroom on the other side of the water softener - you can see the water damage on the walls from a leaking spigot in the bathtub in the bathroom above.)
The day of closing, a plumber showed up that was contracted by the bank. He said he was there to hook up the water softener. I was elated! One less thing to worry about!
The plumber left and returned to the house several times before getting the water softener hooked up. He had a mess of PVC elbows to connect the softener.
Even tho I filled the salt tank, it never seemed to work. The timer cranked away and it would regenerate, but no soft water. With everything else I had to worry about in my home purchase, I put this project on the back burner.
Several months later, we revisted the water softener project and found that the bypass valve was located across the room, above the furnance. We opened the bypass and water flowed to the softener. My boyfriend took a shower that night, and was PELTED by the resin beads from the softener. It turned out that the plumber had hooked up the softener BACKWARDS... the in was the out, and the out was the in. We turned off the bypass. I had to remove the aerators from the sinks and clean them out, as every faucet got plugged up by the beads. (And, my shower massage hasn't worked right since this happened...)
I bought a used Culligan softener from the local paper and we replumbed the mess. I still can't believe the guy had hooked it up backwards...