Whilst in Nubeena (Tasmania) we stayed at the Fairway Resort.  Apparently some people stay there for several nights but one was enough for us.  After we’d gone to bed for the night the wind started to build up outside and we could hear the trees and leaves blowing about.  It didn’t seem particularly windy (we’d had a large storm which knocked over trees and powerlines in the town earlier in the day) so we easily went to sleep.

 About 3am though, the wind changed direction and flung the screen door on the room wide open with an enormous bang guaranteed to wake everyone in three rooms either side.  Not content with that though, Mother Nature then flung the door closed again with a thunderous din and made sure we were all awake.  We immediately got out of bed to secure the door so it wouldn’t do it again and that’s when we discovered that the screen doors didn’t fit the doorframes and were designed to blow open in any wind.  Who knows what use they are in summer since they don’t close enough to keep out the bugs?

Finally, after several attempts to jam the door open using a park bench outside the room and to pin it closed by tying it from the inside we had to get help from the hotel owners.  To their credit, they not only answered the phone at 3am but also came out within minutes to help us solve the problem.  The only catch was that the solution was to jam the door closed from the outside by wedging the park bench against it.  Not the wisest move in the event of a fire - locking your tenants inside the room through the placement of obstacles.

Okay, so I exaggerate - in the event of a fire you could put an elephant on the outside of the door and we’d still manage to escape somehow.  However, for the faulty design of the screen door unable to latch thereby being caught in the wind we had to award the SPOTD very early today.

Categories: SPOTD