Heat tape malfunction. Hoping our girl isn't fried..

[TheSnakeGeek]

well here is the video of her if anyone is interested in seeing how she's acting.. 1080p and full screen and you can see her head vibrating or "twitch" better.




as for a little update.. dad called and said when he checked on her this morning he found her laying completely upside down. he thought she was dead at first. maaan i'm hopin she gets better. i feel terrible for her..



and a little venting.. i went out to my dad's house on monday to double check the temps and check on our girl while he was at work. dad had gotten this rack through boaphile (it was one of the "rhinoraxx"). while i was out there, dad wanted me to give jeff at boaphile a call and ask him about the heat tape. i knew it wasn't jeff's fault our heat tape had malfunctioned, as we've had this rack for almost a year with no problems. i was just going to give him a shout and let him know what was going on and see if he had heard of this before.

as soon as i started trying to explain to him what was going on with the temperature variances he kept cutting me off and wouldn't let me talk. he asked me where the thermostat probe was and i told him it was taped on the heat tape on the middle shelf. he told me it needed to be on the bottom shelf, taped directly on the heat tape. he kept repeating over and over it needed to be DIRECTLY on the heat tape (i guess he was too busy interrupting me to hear i told him it WAS directly on the heat tape on the middle shelf). i started to try explaining to him that with my rack at home, friends racks i've helped with, and the recommendations of everyone on here, the middle shelf was the optimal place for a thermostat probe, and regardless of whether the probe was on the middle shelf or the bottom, that was no reason to cause a 30 degree temperature change from spot to spot on different shelves. i got about two words out and he interrupted me again with "just humor me. place the thermostat probe DIRECTLY on the heat tape on the bottom shelf right next to where the heat tape starts and call me back in 30 minutes."

i'm sorry, but when i have a $2,000 animal that has just been fried, i am in NO mood to humor you. i let you speak. show me the same respect and let me speak in return. i began the conversation completely friendly, but after being interrupted multiple times and talked down to as if i was ignorant, i'm sure a little bit of my frustration began to show through in my voice. we were always quite happy with our boaphile rack. it's nice and sturdy and has gotten the job done. but needless to say, after this little experience, we will not be returning customers. if there's one thing i've learned in sales, you kiss your customer's ass, or at the very least show them respect, especially if the products you're selling are hundreds of dollars. ali at animal plastics has always been overly friendly to me with any questions i've had, and that's the main reason i returned to her when i needed another cage, not that AP's products are necessarily far superior than others, but how you treat your customers goes a long way.

thanks for letting me vent. i feel much better now.