They were attempting to plug in Erin Maree's (roommate) computer into the wall socket through an adaptor, it sparked, they laughed, they tried again, and then the power in the whole apartment went out.
Ooops.
Usually, something like this could be fixed with a simple flipping of the circuit breaker. Oh no, not here! It seems sometimes as though Slovak craftsmen purposefully do shotty work so that one problem because exacerbated by ever increasing elements! For example, the electricity isn't isolated into areas. Are these people crazy?!?!?!?! Erin and Pedro are lucky they didn't DIE or catch on FIRE!
Anyway, they call me to alert me of the predicament (at this point it was 7:15pm) and then proceed to call our landlord. What does the landlord say? ..."Oh, nothing can be done until tomorrow".
Excuse me?
(be forewarned, this may sound a bit harsh, but was written in the heat of the moment. i am normally extremely diplomatic, and when stressed, keep it to myself)
You mean, not only do we have to put our apartment into further risk of going up in flames by lighting several candles, but all of the food in our fridge and freezer will most likely go bad because you can't be bothered to call one of the maintenance people to come look at it? I am pretty sure our main contractor lives down the street from us! It would take him 2 minutes to come over, fiddle around, fix the SHOWER that we have been asking them to fix for 2 MONTHS (it floods the bathroom constantly) and then take his FREAKING MIRRORS out of our KITCHEN where he had them delivered and back to his HOUSE where they BELONG. I am particularly annoyed because I recently bought amazing cheeses and salamis from northern Italy. I will be rather perturbed if my enjoying them is thwarted because of someone's incompetence. On top of that, there are no windows in our shower room. DARK. The one thing that keeps us from becoming dangerous to ourselves and others is that we have a gas stove. The thing is that this would never happen in the US. Usually contractors are smart enough to isolate electrical feeds, and then maintenance in apartment complexes is 24 hours for emergencies. To me this qualifies as an emergency. This just reinforces that I need to live in a place where people care about the quality of their work because their very job depends on it.
So, now our wall socket looks something like this:
In addition, Erin Maree's universal adaptor is now melted. Seriously. The metal prong is deformed. This was serious business.
All I know is that the power better be back on by the time I get home.
1 comment:
Oh boy, with two days to go, this not a fond farewell. Good luck sweetie. And remember, it is not always smooth sailing here in the good ole USA either. You may not recall our experience with Sub Zero or our furnace humidifier that poured water,or the drier vent, or the Co2 detectors going off at three am so that we had to call the fire department, orthewindowsthatdon'tworkandthegaragedoorthatbrokeaspringandthesinkstoppersandthetoiletflushersandtheflashingaroundthewindowsandthecrackinthewindowandthesprinklerleaks-deep breath. Home ownership is a constant battle with care and repair.apartment lif is the same, but less underyour control as you have to wait for a landlord to find the fixers. Isn't great being a grownup?
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