When I was in college I rented an apartment with four of my closest girlfriends. We had the top floor of a ramshackle old New Orleans mansion that had seen better days but to us exuded charm and potential. A few tragic paint choices later (neon macaroni orange for me, pepto-bismal pink for another, lavendar in another, all together it was…horrific) and we were in business, never mind the crumbling porch and clearly-not-to-code laundry room. Everything was dandy other than the roof that leaked (in…New Orleans) and our terrible property manager who didn’t pay the bills for the house. When our air conditioning broke the second time my senior year rather than getting it fixed the landlord, property manager and air conditonining company spent a few weeks “sorting things out” and we were left without air…in New Orleans….in April/May. It was as awesome as it sounds.
This became the first in a long line of rent-related injustices, not one of which comes back to a root source that is my fault such as “not paying a bill”, “burning something down”, “leaving water running”, etc. But since those early college days I’ve been subjected to a flood (neighbor’s washing machine broke), a fire (someone left a small charcoal grill on a rooftop wood deck) during the bar exam study period, no heat in January of 2013 (9 months pregnant, not happy, so cold), no heat during Thanksgiving of 2013 (thanks ancient boiler and holiday repair time frames), and now, no hot water.
No hot water sounds more “vaguely annoying” than life threatening (like the no heat situations) but as it turns out, I’d rank it far, far above “vaguely annoying” and put it up there with “everything is terrible”. It would be fine if it was just for a short period, but we are creeping up on the 24 hour mark and the earliest the situation will be resolved is tonight, but it isn’t looking likely. Thanks Sears for botching the HOA’s order of a new hot water heater, giving the ailing water heater time to completely die.
Taking a look at the overall picture I know that not having hot water for a few days won’t put me on the nomination list for sainthood, and in fact, is pretty much just a first world problem. The hot water will be fixed and we will return to life as normal. In the meantime I’ve put a strict “paper products” rule into place for eating and drinking and I can heat water on the stove to get a sink full of hot soapy water to wash sippy cups and utensils. I’m just wondering what is coming next because I personally believe I’ve dealt with more “no _____” situations than any one person who pays rent and utilities in full and on time every month should have to deal with.
Shakes fist at sky!
Oh, once in high school my Dad was out of town and our pilot light went out and could not be re-lit and my Mom and brother camped out overnight in the living room in front of the fire place before the repair guy could come. I deemed that “weird” (UGH, FAMILY, ALL IN ONE ROOM) and insisted on sleeping in my room (walkout basement) under electric blankets and I’m pretty sure my Mom came down to check on my every hour because she was convinced an electrical fire was going to bring the house down around us thanks to the blankets. Also: I was an idiot. It was freezing, even with the blanket. The living room was nice and warm thanks to the fireplace.
Also in high school our power grid needed updating and one summer we were subject to power outages regularly when it got really hot and everyone ran their AC. My Dad’s (very) good friend is some big-wig at the power company and every time it happened he’d load us in the car and drive over to said friend’s house and ask what was for dinner. Well, sometimes he’d call his friends while driving us to a restaurant (these outages always happened around meal time) and tell him he was forwarding him the bill. Regardless, the power grid was eventually updated, or so I hear. Ahhh, memories.
(Also, also in high school our house flooded twice, but those are stories for another day. But one flood involved water pouring out of light fixtures in the basement and neither my brother or I woke up for it and my parents will never let us live it down.)
