Mama never said life would be easy
I've been trapped in an apartment for two days.
Not locked in, but trapped here waiting for people to come and replace a hot water heater that spontaneously died around 2am or so and flooded the hallways in the apartment Jeremy and I are staying at until Oct 1st.
The mishap began at 3am two nights ago when I felt a suspicious "squish" under my feet during a trip to the bathroom. Looking down, I realized the carpet was soaking wet and that it wasn't supposed to be moving...
Our roommate, who owns this apartment, phoned Reliance (who we quickly realized we could not rely upon at at all) to set up a repair. Promptly at 11:30am that morning, two very nice guys knocked on the door and spent the next 10 minutes hemming and hawing at the water heater. Then they went out to the parking lot and spent another 20 minutes on the phone, awaiting instructions.
"This building has an order to replace all natural gas heaters with electric ones. So we have to wait for the owner's permission to do this."
Since I wasn't the owner, this was going to be a problem. Our roommate decided to take the rest of the day off and wait here until things got sorted out.
(Spoiler: Obviously I wouldn't be writing about being trapped for two days if this had gotten sorted out)
At 5pm, he called them back and was promised they would look into things and get back in touch with him shortly. Nobody called back, and the inhabitants of this little apartment resigned themselves to another morning without hot water.
In hopes that things would be fixed this morning, my roommate called Reliance back again this morning at 8am, told them that I had the power to approve a replacement water heater, etc, and to please come and fix this asap.
(Spoiler #2: Once again this has obviously not happened, as I'm writing this rant about being stuck in this apartment)
Nobody called, nobody came. No hot water. No dishes cleaned, no showers enjoyed.
The only fun part of this has been listening to them screw up my name. So far, it's been Melanie, then Melissa, then they were calling me by my roommates last name, "Mrs. ____".
It's 2:45pm now - almost two business days have passed and still nothing. I personally have called 8 times (particularly annoying as this is NOT EVEN MY APARTMENT) and have recieved 1 call back from a supervisor, who said there was a work order for us between 1 and 4pm this afternoon.
"Don't worry Miss Peters..."
"No, it's Peterson - Melinda Peterson!"
"oh, sorry. Anyway, I know you're very frustrated but I'll call you every hour on the hour to make sure to keep up with this. Somebody will be there this afternoon!"
(Spoiler #3: anybody remember my Uhaul story?)
I called a 15 minutes ago, got another poor agent who has no idea what's going on (none of them have), and was told first that a my supervisor was not available, offered to transfer me to another person, then came back a minute later saying,
"Michelle?"
"No - it's MELINDA. Melinda Peterson." (loud sigh)
"Oh, sorry. Okay, I can see here that she already has the message to call you back - she'll call you shortly".
I leave for work in 1 hour and 15 minutes. Not sure if that's enough time to replace a water heater, but if they show up here soon, they're sure as hell going to do it.
Let's hope a cold shower will cool me off...
(see how I make jokes? hahaha.)
UPDATE:
It's 7:45am on Wednesday morning - we still have no hot water!
Apparently in order to get a new hot water heater, the old one first has to be removed by Reliance, then a new group of guys has to bring in the electric one.
Apparently this is the reason for the hold-up.
I heard my roommate on the phone this morning at 7:15am talking to a contractor who heard the story repeated for the 14th time now (apparently they don't know how to read the notes that are attached to this number).
"No, sir, I am NOT happy. The water heater burst on Monday in the middle of the night and we've been two full days without hot water. This is the start of day 3. This is unacceptable."
I wouldn't have been so polite. The only other company that has been this incompetent was Uhaul...
Apparently he's supposed to get a call by 8am. We'll see...
UPDATE:
He didn't get a call.
(big surprise)
*** We finally got the hot water heater installed at 2:30pm on Wednesday. Almost 3 full business days after calling to report the problem. ***
Not locked in, but trapped here waiting for people to come and replace a hot water heater that spontaneously died around 2am or so and flooded the hallways in the apartment Jeremy and I are staying at until Oct 1st.
The mishap began at 3am two nights ago when I felt a suspicious "squish" under my feet during a trip to the bathroom. Looking down, I realized the carpet was soaking wet and that it wasn't supposed to be moving...
Our roommate, who owns this apartment, phoned Reliance (who we quickly realized we could not rely upon at at all) to set up a repair. Promptly at 11:30am that morning, two very nice guys knocked on the door and spent the next 10 minutes hemming and hawing at the water heater. Then they went out to the parking lot and spent another 20 minutes on the phone, awaiting instructions.
"This building has an order to replace all natural gas heaters with electric ones. So we have to wait for the owner's permission to do this."
Since I wasn't the owner, this was going to be a problem. Our roommate decided to take the rest of the day off and wait here until things got sorted out.
(Spoiler: Obviously I wouldn't be writing about being trapped for two days if this had gotten sorted out)
At 5pm, he called them back and was promised they would look into things and get back in touch with him shortly. Nobody called back, and the inhabitants of this little apartment resigned themselves to another morning without hot water.
In hopes that things would be fixed this morning, my roommate called Reliance back again this morning at 8am, told them that I had the power to approve a replacement water heater, etc, and to please come and fix this asap.
(Spoiler #2: Once again this has obviously not happened, as I'm writing this rant about being stuck in this apartment)
Nobody called, nobody came. No hot water. No dishes cleaned, no showers enjoyed.
The only fun part of this has been listening to them screw up my name. So far, it's been Melanie, then Melissa, then they were calling me by my roommates last name, "Mrs. ____".
It's 2:45pm now - almost two business days have passed and still nothing. I personally have called 8 times (particularly annoying as this is NOT EVEN MY APARTMENT) and have recieved 1 call back from a supervisor, who said there was a work order for us between 1 and 4pm this afternoon.
"Don't worry Miss Peters..."
"No, it's Peterson - Melinda Peterson!"
"oh, sorry. Anyway, I know you're very frustrated but I'll call you every hour on the hour to make sure to keep up with this. Somebody will be there this afternoon!"
(Spoiler #3: anybody remember my Uhaul story?)
I called a 15 minutes ago, got another poor agent who has no idea what's going on (none of them have), and was told first that a my supervisor was not available, offered to transfer me to another person, then came back a minute later saying,
"Michelle?"
"No - it's MELINDA. Melinda Peterson." (loud sigh)
"Oh, sorry. Okay, I can see here that she already has the message to call you back - she'll call you shortly".
I leave for work in 1 hour and 15 minutes. Not sure if that's enough time to replace a water heater, but if they show up here soon, they're sure as hell going to do it.
Let's hope a cold shower will cool me off...
(see how I make jokes? hahaha.)
UPDATE:
It's 7:45am on Wednesday morning - we still have no hot water!
Apparently in order to get a new hot water heater, the old one first has to be removed by Reliance, then a new group of guys has to bring in the electric one.
Apparently this is the reason for the hold-up.
I heard my roommate on the phone this morning at 7:15am talking to a contractor who heard the story repeated for the 14th time now (apparently they don't know how to read the notes that are attached to this number).
"No, sir, I am NOT happy. The water heater burst on Monday in the middle of the night and we've been two full days without hot water. This is the start of day 3. This is unacceptable."
I wouldn't have been so polite. The only other company that has been this incompetent was Uhaul...
Apparently he's supposed to get a call by 8am. We'll see...
UPDATE:
He didn't get a call.
(big surprise)
*** We finally got the hot water heater installed at 2:30pm on Wednesday. Almost 3 full business days after calling to report the problem. ***
posted by Melinda @ 2:35 PM
4 Comments:
At 12:38 AM,
Anonymous said…
"Ugggggg!" "Brrrrrrr!!!!"
Cold showers are not my thing!
Sure hope the problem is fixed.
I'll call tomorrow for an update.
LOve always,
MOM
At 10:03 PM,
Unknown said…
What a nightmare, i'm afraid to read the U-Haul story
At 10:58 PM,
Melinda said…
Mom - I took major advantage of the whirlpool room this week - 15-20 minutes in the hot tub, then a shower in the ladies locker room. Other than dealing with people staring at the girl in the bathing suit walking down the hallway, it wasn't too bad!
Barbara - That Uhaul story is pretty funny to read now, but at the time it was pretty horrible...
I actually have had moving truck issues this time around - with regards to getting one rented - and even still I refuse to go with Uhaul.
At 1:00 PM,
Suldog said…
Yikes! I shower daily (heck, sometimes twice a day) so no hot water for close to three days would make me one severely unhappy camper.
I'm glad it was finally resolved.
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