I feel like telling you some things I have learned since living in my new DREAM apartment.
To have heat:
My roommates and I went the entire month of November without heat. I supplemented with a tiny space heater that would probably warm a hot pocket if placed on it for about 20 minutes. The problem is, the heater turns off after 20 minutes. It is not as reliable as it should be when freezing through the night.
I complained so frequently at work about not having heat my Secret Santa this year gave me a space heater, this is when I fully realized “maybe we have a problem here”.
My roommate just happens to be a genius and she set up some excel sheet with multiple formulas to determine when we were in violations of a heating code in the apartment and when they weren’t…. based on an outside temperature and estimated (thank you meat thermometer) inside temperature. ( my old formula was …I can’t feel my face….this was not as scientific).
Well, she set up this scary looking chart and then a g-mail acct. She then posted it on the front door. Meanwhile, I called 311. (a side note on 311..I have no idea what I accomplished by calling them expect that I found out 11 other people had called to file a complaint) Anyway, 311 said they would “investigate.” Thank you 311.
So to make a long story short, we had an excel spread sheet, we had organized with in the building. We had filed a city complaint and we were freezing our asses off and then one day the heat came back on. It was like when you are in an elevator and you are going to your floor and everyone is silent and you are doing that shifty eye thing… then you hear the ding and you have that brief...very brief…feeling of satisfaction. Then you move forward. That is what it felt like to have the heat come back on. DING. Shifty eyes. Brief feeling of satisfaction. Then you move forward.
Due to some crafty footwork by my roommate we had our rent knocked off, which is nice. I did wake up Thanksgiving morning to go to work in the freezing Antarctica. At that exact moment I had nothing to be thankful for. BUT in December, when we had heat…I was thankful for …well I was thankful for my roommate …and then heat…until THE FLOOD.
The Hot Tub:
It was so nice to have heat again; I almost did not even notice that my room had one day turned into a hot tub. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I would love to have that amenity, but I just felt cheated I was not prepared with a better raft. My BRAND new bed that I had spent 47 hours putting together was damn heavy and did not float in my new hot tub of a room.
If I had known sooner, I would have foregone the beautiful plat formed, 8 drawer, painted mahogany bed and gone with a more suitable IKEA plastic blowup raft with cup holders!
When I first moved to New York I slept on an Aero bed with 47 other people in an apartment in Brooklyn. I envied those days.
I called Alberto, our super, who may be Haitian. He speaks Hatilish. Some maybe Haitian…some Spanish..some English from what I can gather.
How you make appointments with Alberto is this. You call him. He says “ALO”. You say “hi this is sarah from Apt 6.” You state problem. He says. “WHA TIE” You say. 4 O’clock. He says. “uhhhh ahhhhhhhhhh” long pause. He says “ I can(inaudible) 4 O’clock”. You can’t decide if he said 4 O’clock. He can’t or he can. So you say. 4’ O’clock. He then repeats “4’Oclcok several times in a row.
The next day. You go to your house. It is 4’Oclock and he is not there. You call him. He answers. You say “Hi alberto it’s sarah from apt 6. It’s 4’Oclock…” He interrupts you….”I be there in ‘teen minutes.” You are not sure how long that is. So you wait.
He shows up maybe an hour later. Rings doorbell. You open the door. He comes in right past you to the Radiator (or said problem). He takes the valve off of the radiator and sprays water all over the room. He does not seem concerned. He says it’s the “valve” He replaces the “valve” and says. “is fixed”. Thanks Alberto.
Two hours later you are swimming off the coast of Broome Street once again.
The process repeats itself for 2 or 3 more weeks. Call Alberto “4 O’clock” Wait one hour Ring Doorbell. “Is Valve” replace valve. “Is fixed.” Swimming at 9pm.
One day you decide to call the management company. They schedule a plumber.
I show up at the apartment the day of my plumber “appointment”. The plumber says I am late. Alberto is there. He says I’m late too. But if I show up at 4’Oclock and my appointment is at 4 how am I late? They will not argue with me. The plumber tells me “whoever” pays the bill will have to pay the overtime for this. OKAY. GOOD START.
We go into the apartment. I shove dirty clothes under my bed as plumber….“Pablo,” plumber’s assistant… and Alberto RUSH into my room to FIX this radiator ASAP.
I begin to move the bed over and plumber yells at me for attempting to move the bed over. I’m reverting back to the image of Alberto spraying my whole room down last time. Thanks Alberto. The plumber says it’s not necessary. I move it anyway.
He then glances down at the on/off valve and does a 180 degree turn, glares at me and yells “HAVE YOUS BEN TOUCHIN THIS?” in a thick Bronx accent. I look at the valve. I look at him. I look at …Alberto has disappeared at this point. I’m not kidding. He was in the room and then he was gone.
“No…(I lied)…well yes…I mean …we’ve been having problem with the heat…so…I mean….when it is necessary…well…see we didn’t…” He cut me off. “YOU CANNNA TOUCH THIS” There was then a long soliloquy about touching radiator valves that I had a hard time following.
"dONT EVA… EVA touch the RAD- E- ator" (not pronounced RAY-Dee -Ator …as I so ignorantly have been calling it for some years).
Apparently touching the valve will ruin your life. So the plumber opened the valve unscrewed the RAD-E-ATOR from the pipes and asked Pablo to drain out the water. Radiators are heavy and I’m not sure how he was going to do this but he kept complaining it was hot. When he did this the plumber would then yell at him. “YOU’RE THE ONE THAT DECIDED NOT TO GO TO COLLEGE.”
Ouch.
So he drained it out and took a scolding in more ways then one. The plumber also added a “pitch” to the radiator. He said this was very important and blamed Alberto for not adding a “pitch” earlier.
Okay, so here are some rules to follow for RAD-E-ATORS:
1) DO NOT TOUCH
2) Needs said “pitch”
3) If you do not go to college you will be forced to drain scolding radiators with your bare hands
Silicon can fix everything:
One day my roommate mentioned the cabinets in the kitchen were falling off the walls. I went and checked it out and noticed this to, in fact, to be true. I thought about DIY, get out my drill and put some anchors in the wall and taking care of it with some heavy screws, but then decided there are probably more professional ways to do this and the management company probably doesn’t want me screwing with this cabinet.
I called Alberto. Usual procedure. “4 O’clock”….
He came by a few days later. I had moved everything in the kitchen out of the way, because he may be taking the cabinet down. He said it wasn’t necessary.
He screwed 14,000 screws into the cabinet and through the corresponding dry wall. He says it will hold until next week. Thanks. Alberto. He also added he will come by and put "silicon" around the outside of it, if it doesn't. I'm not worried...I feel like it will hold.
He also did the same thing to the bathroom fixture but said it needed "silicon" as well.
Alberto has this really great ability to fixate on one word. Last month it was "Valve". "Valve" this "Valve" that. We fix "valve." Now, it is "Silicon', “Silicon” this “Silicon” that. We fix with “Silicon.” Thanks. Alberto.
Gray Hair:
Living in New York will give you gray hair whether your Super dyes it or not.
The sink in the bathroom was not draining. I called Albert. Same procedure “4 O’clock”. …
He came by a week later with a gigantic bottle of bleach. He asked me for a coat hanger. Remembering the line “NO WIRE HANGERS”. I went into my closet and found plenty.
I gave him the hanger and I’m going to spare you the details because it was gross. He told me to not fix my hair over the sink. I said “THAT IS NOT MY HAIR!!! IT IS GRAY!!!!”
He said, “It’s the Bleach.”
To have heat:
My roommates and I went the entire month of November without heat. I supplemented with a tiny space heater that would probably warm a hot pocket if placed on it for about 20 minutes. The problem is, the heater turns off after 20 minutes. It is not as reliable as it should be when freezing through the night.
I complained so frequently at work about not having heat my Secret Santa this year gave me a space heater, this is when I fully realized “maybe we have a problem here”.
My roommate just happens to be a genius and she set up some excel sheet with multiple formulas to determine when we were in violations of a heating code in the apartment and when they weren’t…. based on an outside temperature and estimated (thank you meat thermometer) inside temperature. ( my old formula was …I can’t feel my face….this was not as scientific).
Well, she set up this scary looking chart and then a g-mail acct. She then posted it on the front door. Meanwhile, I called 311. (a side note on 311..I have no idea what I accomplished by calling them expect that I found out 11 other people had called to file a complaint) Anyway, 311 said they would “investigate.” Thank you 311.
So to make a long story short, we had an excel spread sheet, we had organized with in the building. We had filed a city complaint and we were freezing our asses off and then one day the heat came back on. It was like when you are in an elevator and you are going to your floor and everyone is silent and you are doing that shifty eye thing… then you hear the ding and you have that brief...very brief…feeling of satisfaction. Then you move forward. That is what it felt like to have the heat come back on. DING. Shifty eyes. Brief feeling of satisfaction. Then you move forward.
Due to some crafty footwork by my roommate we had our rent knocked off, which is nice. I did wake up Thanksgiving morning to go to work in the freezing Antarctica. At that exact moment I had nothing to be thankful for. BUT in December, when we had heat…I was thankful for …well I was thankful for my roommate …and then heat…until THE FLOOD.
The Hot Tub:
It was so nice to have heat again; I almost did not even notice that my room had one day turned into a hot tub. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I would love to have that amenity, but I just felt cheated I was not prepared with a better raft. My BRAND new bed that I had spent 47 hours putting together was damn heavy and did not float in my new hot tub of a room.
If I had known sooner, I would have foregone the beautiful plat formed, 8 drawer, painted mahogany bed and gone with a more suitable IKEA plastic blowup raft with cup holders!
When I first moved to New York I slept on an Aero bed with 47 other people in an apartment in Brooklyn. I envied those days.
I called Alberto, our super, who may be Haitian. He speaks Hatilish. Some maybe Haitian…some Spanish..some English from what I can gather.
How you make appointments with Alberto is this. You call him. He says “ALO”. You say “hi this is sarah from Apt 6.” You state problem. He says. “WHA TIE” You say. 4 O’clock. He says. “uhhhh ahhhhhhhhhh” long pause. He says “ I can(inaudible) 4 O’clock”. You can’t decide if he said 4 O’clock. He can’t or he can. So you say. 4’ O’clock. He then repeats “4’Oclcok several times in a row.
The next day. You go to your house. It is 4’Oclock and he is not there. You call him. He answers. You say “Hi alberto it’s sarah from apt 6. It’s 4’Oclock…” He interrupts you….”I be there in ‘teen minutes.” You are not sure how long that is. So you wait.
He shows up maybe an hour later. Rings doorbell. You open the door. He comes in right past you to the Radiator (or said problem). He takes the valve off of the radiator and sprays water all over the room. He does not seem concerned. He says it’s the “valve” He replaces the “valve” and says. “is fixed”. Thanks Alberto.
Two hours later you are swimming off the coast of Broome Street once again.
The process repeats itself for 2 or 3 more weeks. Call Alberto “4 O’clock” Wait one hour Ring Doorbell. “Is Valve” replace valve. “Is fixed.” Swimming at 9pm.
One day you decide to call the management company. They schedule a plumber.
I show up at the apartment the day of my plumber “appointment”. The plumber says I am late. Alberto is there. He says I’m late too. But if I show up at 4’Oclock and my appointment is at 4 how am I late? They will not argue with me. The plumber tells me “whoever” pays the bill will have to pay the overtime for this. OKAY. GOOD START.
We go into the apartment. I shove dirty clothes under my bed as plumber….“Pablo,” plumber’s assistant… and Alberto RUSH into my room to FIX this radiator ASAP.
I begin to move the bed over and plumber yells at me for attempting to move the bed over. I’m reverting back to the image of Alberto spraying my whole room down last time. Thanks Alberto. The plumber says it’s not necessary. I move it anyway.
He then glances down at the on/off valve and does a 180 degree turn, glares at me and yells “HAVE YOUS BEN TOUCHIN THIS?” in a thick Bronx accent. I look at the valve. I look at him. I look at …Alberto has disappeared at this point. I’m not kidding. He was in the room and then he was gone.
“No…(I lied)…well yes…I mean …we’ve been having problem with the heat…so…I mean….when it is necessary…well…see we didn’t…” He cut me off. “YOU CANNNA TOUCH THIS” There was then a long soliloquy about touching radiator valves that I had a hard time following.
"dONT EVA… EVA touch the RAD- E- ator" (not pronounced RAY-Dee -Ator …as I so ignorantly have been calling it for some years).
Apparently touching the valve will ruin your life. So the plumber opened the valve unscrewed the RAD-E-ATOR from the pipes and asked Pablo to drain out the water. Radiators are heavy and I’m not sure how he was going to do this but he kept complaining it was hot. When he did this the plumber would then yell at him. “YOU’RE THE ONE THAT DECIDED NOT TO GO TO COLLEGE.”
Ouch.
So he drained it out and took a scolding in more ways then one. The plumber also added a “pitch” to the radiator. He said this was very important and blamed Alberto for not adding a “pitch” earlier.
Okay, so here are some rules to follow for RAD-E-ATORS:
1) DO NOT TOUCH
2) Needs said “pitch”
3) If you do not go to college you will be forced to drain scolding radiators with your bare hands
Silicon can fix everything:
One day my roommate mentioned the cabinets in the kitchen were falling off the walls. I went and checked it out and noticed this to, in fact, to be true. I thought about DIY, get out my drill and put some anchors in the wall and taking care of it with some heavy screws, but then decided there are probably more professional ways to do this and the management company probably doesn’t want me screwing with this cabinet.
I called Alberto. Usual procedure. “4 O’clock”….
He came by a few days later. I had moved everything in the kitchen out of the way, because he may be taking the cabinet down. He said it wasn’t necessary.
He screwed 14,000 screws into the cabinet and through the corresponding dry wall. He says it will hold until next week. Thanks. Alberto. He also added he will come by and put "silicon" around the outside of it, if it doesn't. I'm not worried...I feel like it will hold.
He also did the same thing to the bathroom fixture but said it needed "silicon" as well.
Alberto has this really great ability to fixate on one word. Last month it was "Valve". "Valve" this "Valve" that. We fix "valve." Now, it is "Silicon', “Silicon” this “Silicon” that. We fix with “Silicon.” Thanks. Alberto.
Gray Hair:
Living in New York will give you gray hair whether your Super dyes it or not.
The sink in the bathroom was not draining. I called Albert. Same procedure “4 O’clock”. …
He came by a week later with a gigantic bottle of bleach. He asked me for a coat hanger. Remembering the line “NO WIRE HANGERS”. I went into my closet and found plenty.
I gave him the hanger and I’m going to spare you the details because it was gross. He told me to not fix my hair over the sink. I said “THAT IS NOT MY HAIR!!! IT IS GRAY!!!!”
He said, “It’s the Bleach.”
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