15 February 2010

The landlords might hate me.

I think our landlords think I'm ridiculous. It all started the first month that we lived in our apartment. I got home late one night. It was rainy and terrible outside and I was excited to just get in the apartment and relax. I hiked up the 5 flights of stairs to our apartment, got out my keys, and tried to open the door. For some reason, I could not unlock the door! No matter which way I turned the key, which lock I unlocked (and locked and unlocked again) the door would not open. Roommate was out, I was new to the city and didn't really know anyone that lived close, definitely didn't know any of our neighbors, I was stuck. I camped out on our stairs for a bit, thinking maybe if I gave it a rest for a second I'd be able to unlock the door and get into my apartment, but to no avail I just couldn't get it open!


Finally, after about half and hour maybe 45 minutes of trying, I gave up and had to call the landlord. How embarrassing to have to call the landlord and tell them you can't open the door. He said he'd be out to our building in about 30 minutes so I pulled out my book and started reading on the stairs while I waited. He arrived as promised and I apologized for making him come out in the rain so late. He then turned to the problematic door and opened it in about two seconds making me feel like a complete idiot. Turns out I just wasn't turning the key hard enough. Seriously? He was incredibly nice about it and assured me that he had to come out for another call anyways and left after giving me a lesson in unlocking the door. I am convinced he went home and told his family about the dumb girl that just moved in and can't unlock her own door.

Fast forward to about a week ago when I called to complain that our apartment was an ice box. Andrea actually called the day before and they came and "fixed it" but nothing the apartment was still freezing so called again. Don't worry-our apartment is like a sauna now. We have the fans on and the windows open...

Yesterday after a long day at work I come home to find a note on our building door alerting all of us tenants that due to a MAJOR leak there would be no hot water until 5pm the next day. But don't worry-the cold water is still working. Ha. Awesome. One day-I suppose that's manageable. Good thing I did my hair that morning.

So today I come home, looking forward to taking a hot shower. Turn on the bathroom hot water faucet-ice cold. Hm. Let it run for a while. Still ice cold. Page the landlord and he returns my call. I tell him the hot water isn't working and he asks me if I'm sure, because it should be working. I reply that I'm pretty sure, turned on the water, let it run, still cold. Should I let it run longer? Turns out that the plumber forgot to flip the hot water switch or the pump or something plumber-y like that. The landlord said he'd be in early in the morning to fix it. Hm. Day 2 without hot water.

We have this interesting neighbor in our building. He's actually one of the only people I've met that lives in this building. Bless his heart he is nice, but strange. Every time we see him, he's complaining about something in the building and apparently the landlords have stopped answer his pages because he calls so frequently about silly little things.

I'm worried that I'm going to be the next on the do not answer list...

1 comments:

Tracy said...

Oh dear. It is always interesting to rent. There is always something with the apartment.. the older it is, the more somethings there are. ha ha. Good luck. I hope you get your hot water back soon!