I think the microwave's possessed

Hi there! Yes, it's me, I'm alive...just missing from the blog world for most of July. Oops. Work's been crazy busy, and then we've gone into full-on 'gotta fix up the condo' mode to get it ready to rent out when we move. I really didn't think we had that much to do... but somehow the list keeps multiplying, and although I've started like 10 different projects, barely anything has actually gotten checked off yet.

Today I thought I'd just do a quick post on something we weren't originally planning to update before moving - the microwave. All of our kitchen appliances were brand new when we moved in 7 years ago. They're boring, basic black appliances, but they all work fine and still look new(ish), so we hadn't planned on messing with them...until the microwave started turning on by itself. 

Whenever it turned on, none of the buttons would work (including that all-important 'cancel' button). Open the door, and it would stop... until I'd shut it and it would turn right back on again. This didn't happen every day, but it happened a few times before we started feeling the need to shut off the fuse whenever we left the house. Of course, we wouldn't always remember ('Honey, did you shut off the microwave fuse?' isn't exactly part of our usual routine), and then I wouldn't be able to stop worrying that the microwave would turn itself on for hours and everything would be up in flames by the time we returned.

We had a black GE Spacemaker. We bought a black GE Spacemaker. How boring is that? But it matches the rest of our appliances and was on sale for $179, which is pretty cheap for an over-the-range microwave (and at least they had updated the model so it didn't feel like we were getting exactly the same one!). Sorry for the grainy pic, but at the speed I'm going lately, I figured I should just go with it... and I accidentally deleted my only 'before' photo thinking it was an extra 'after' photo (so clearly the difference isn't mindblowing anyway!).

Although I wasn't terribly excited about this unplanned purchase, it is very nice to have the new one installed so that we don't have a fire hazard of epic proportions in the middle of the kitchen!

Have you ever had an appliance that suddenly went psycho on you? How long has your microwave lasted? It still felt like a 'new' appliance to me, although I guess 7 years isn't that bad for a smaller appliance like a microwave?