The time: I dunno, a couple of years ago, I guess.
The place: My old apartment, near Green God-It's-Cold-Here Bay, Wisconsin.
The story: My roommate, Z, was complaining that our apartment was cold. I am a hermit who leaves the bedroom only when necessary, and I objected. My room was stinkin' hot. The Squeeze, who was up for a visit, agreed with me. (Hi, Mom! We were just watching movies!)
Anyway, we all went to bed--Z cold, me dying of heatstroke.
A couple hours later, I wake up to a hissing sound. I ignore it for a little while, but it doesn't go away, and it's the exact pitch to be extremely annoying. I get up and investigate, following the sound to the pit of despair (the second closet in my room that is full of hot-water heater and so does not have room for any of my shoes).
A trickle of hot water is streaming down the side, from some gasket or something. As I watch, there is a popping sound, and suddenly, that hot water is shooting all over the place. It is a deluge of biblical proportions, and there is a very good chance we will all die a scalding death in cloud pyjamas.
I call my landlord. And get his voicemail. I leave a very panicked message. Then I call my dad. Because who else do you call at 1:30 in the morning when your apartment is exploding and your landlord isn't answering? He walks me through shutting off the valve, so at least the waterfall isn't quite so huge. A strange rumble persists, though, which is somewhat worrisome. As it turns out, my sleep-addled dad forgot to mention that I should have turned off the power to the water heater, as well, so pressure didn't keep building...
The rumbling got lounder. And louder. We get our coats on, ready to run for the hills. My dog, Hans (pre-Prada dachshund cutie), was whimpering pathetically. And louder. This is it. I was going to die in ugly pyjamas.
And then Super-MaintenanceGuy showed up and saved the day. Which almost made up for the time that our toilet broke and we had to go to the gas station a mile away because it took the maintenance guy three days to fix it.
True: My high school did not offer a shop class, nor a home economics course. Because when you go to a fancy-pants private school, you learn that that is what your staff is for.
I had a similar experience when I was doing the final cleaning of my last apartment before moving out -- I went to fill a mop bucket from the bathtub tap and the handle shot off, spraying scalding, pressurized water EVERYWHERE. Needless to say, I did NOT get my security deposit back...
ReplyDeleteI pretty much consider my security deposits a wash and don't worry too much. Even if I scrub everything top to bottom and leave the place sparkling, I'm always blamed for the scuff on the linoleum or something. Once it was because the landlord didn't actually walk through the apartment for a couple of days, and by the time he had, some leaves had blown into the garage. Blegh.
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