‘3 boxes in a row’: Costco shopper shares how flooring companies trick customers into re-doing their floors

Installing flooring is more complicated than it looks, and flooring companies aren't making the process any easier (or affordable).

Replacing the entire floor of a house or apartment is already a tedious, laborious, and costly task.

Even with vinyl flooring being one of the most affordable options it can run $2 to $6 per square foot and then $2 to $3 per square foot of labor. For a moderately sized 700 sqft home, that could run you $2,800 to $6,300 total.

When forking over that amount of cash, you'd, at minimum, expect the materials to come in correct. To fit. Right? Rigghhtt?

Costco manufacturer changes the pattern

In a viral video just shy of 500,000 views, TikToker Devon (@devonsfixerupper) shared an unfortunate discovery.

Devon's TikTok page is dedicated to sharing his journey as he tackles renovating his first home himself. His first project is tackling flooring, but Costco seems to have thrown a wrench in his progress.

"Costco, count your freaking days," Devon said.

Devon explained that he installed flooring all week with no problem. That is, until he opened up a problematic box of vinyl planks.

Floor planks have a tongue and groove that allow pieces to fit together snugly.

But it seems something changed when creating some of the boxes Devon bought. No matter what he did, the tongue and groove weren't placed correctly, making who knows how many dollars worth of materials unusable.

So far Devon has found three boxes (about $150) of the defective flooring, but there could be more.

"Oh my gosh," Devon said, exasperated. "...These were printed and sent out backwards."

Commenters react

"Why we don't buy our building materials and bulk boxes of granola bars in the same place," a person said sarcastically.

"Rotate 180 buddy," another wrote.

"Floor manufacturers change the interlocking pattern every 3 years or so, preventing you from being able to buy a few boxes to do a renovation and instead having to replace your entire floor," a commenter chimed in.

"some brands make an A and B pieces so you can install in a herringbone pattern," a person shared.

Wait do floor patterns change so you have to buy a whole new floor?

Yes, according to a Lumber Liquidators worker. As we reported recently:

"Vinyl and laminate get updated every two or three years, maybe even faster if they can make it happen, to force people to buy an entirely new floor if they don’t have a single box lying around to repair something,” he explains. “So if you have a busted pipe in your kitchen or something, and you got a leak, and you have three planks that are busted—sorry, you have to buy $1,000 of new floor, $5,000 of new floor, and you got to get someone to install it. And that’s on purpose.”

Devon addresses his haters

"Everybody in the comments assuming that I'm just an idiot is so funny to me because, honestly, I am fueled by your hatred; bring it on," Devon said.

Replying to the swarm of people who told him to just rotate the piece 180 degrees, Devon showed that no matter in what direction he placed the plank, there was always a side that didn't click into place.

"You guys, they're just manufactured wrong. I'm not an idiot," Devons said, laughing.

For those who judged Devon for getting his flooring from Costco, he pointed out that what he got were pretty standard materials. They're comparable to what's being installed in many new construction homes across the country.

The Daily Dot only found the flooring Devon is using on the Costco site. It's possible that it's listed under a different name from other retailers despite having the same manufacturer.

While some redditors complained about the quality of the flooring, others said that even the best materials can't withstand a poor installation process.

The Daily Dot reached out to Devon for comment via TikTok direct message and comment and to Costco via email.

@devonsfixerupper #creatorsearchinsights ♬ original sound - Devon's_fixer_upper

Internet culture is chaotic—but we’ll break it down for you in one daily email. Sign up for the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter here. You’ll get the best (and worst) of the internet straight into your inbox.

Sign up to receive the Daily Dot’s Internet Insider newsletter for urgent news from the frontline of online.

The post ‘3 boxes in a row’: Costco shopper shares how flooring companies trick customers into re-doing their floors appeared first on The Daily Dot.