Indian Summer Returns; Hardware Stores Cap Window AC Sales At Two Per Household

WAUKESHA — The National Weather Service issued an unseasonable-warmth advisory for southeast Wisconsin covering Saturday and Sunday, with highs forecast at 86 to 88 degrees, and Waukesha County hardware stores responded the way they now apparently always will: by rationing air conditioners.

The Home Depot on Concord Drive posted a laminated sign at the register Friday morning limiting customers to two window AC units per household, per transaction, per day. Assistant store manager Pat Schommer said the cap was less about any one customer and more about what he called "inventory volatility and the unpredictability of Wisconsin autumn," a phrase he said he workshopped for about twenty minutes in the break room before settling on it.

"We sold out of the five-thousand-BTU Frigidaire on October 8th by noon," Schommer said. "We thought that was a once-in-a-decade thing. It has now happened twice in nine days."

Same model, seven restocks

Staff at three Ace Hardware locations in the city reported restocking the identical Midea 8,000-BTU window unit seven separate times in the last ten days, a pace one employee described as "basically a rotisserie." The model has become something of a local celebrity object; a cashier at the Sunset Drive Ace said at least four customers this week asked specifically whether "the one from before" was back in stock, without being able to name the brand.

Chris Lauber, 44, stood in the Concord Drive Home Depot parking lot at 7:52 a.m. Friday, second in a line of eleven people, holding a reusable grocery bag he said he intended to use to carry a second unit "in case the cart situation got weird again." Lauber bought a window AC unit on October 8th, installed it the same afternoon, and removed it four days later when overnight temperatures dropped into the 40s.

"I put the thing in my garage on a shelf next to the snow blower. Taking it back out nine days later felt like a personal failure, honestly."

— Chris Lauber, Waukesha resident

A cap with holes in it

The two-unit limit applies per transaction, which store associates confirmed does not prevent a customer from completing multiple transactions. By 9:40 a.m. Friday, at least one shopper, who declined to give his name, had been observed checking out twice within eleven minutes, once at a self-checkout and once with a cashier, for a total of four units.

Schommer said corporate has not issued formal guidance on closing that loophole. "We're a hardware store, not the TSA," he said. "I can put up a sign. I can't put up a wall."

At the Ace Hardware on Sunset Drive, manager Dawn Krch said her store opted against a formal purchase limit, instead relying on what she called "a look." She said the look has worked on roughly half of attempted bulk purchases since Wednesday.

Forecasters not ruling out a third round

WEAU meteorologists said the Saturday-Sunday warm-up is expected to break by Monday evening, with highs returning to the mid-60s by midweek. Asked whether another spike was possible before winter, a WEAU forecaster said only that "Wisconsin October has stopped committing to a personality," and declined to rule anything out on the record.

For now, the two-unit cap at Concord Drive Home Depot is scheduled to remain in effect through Sunday night. Schommer said he has already drafted a version of the sign for a potential third event, with the number of permitted units left blank "so we don't have to reprint it."

If the pattern holds, shoppers looking to get ahead of the next advisory might consider a portable window air conditioner (paid link) now rather than waiting for the next laminated sign, though Lauber said he personally is done buying and reselling the same machine to himself every nine days.

"Next time it drops back into the 40s, it's staying in the window," he said. "I don't care how it looks."