When my roommate and I moved to our apartment in Salt Lake on the very last day of June, I was shocked in the best sort of way that my older brother actually helped with the whole moving process. (If you've ever heard anything about the way my older brother and I interact, you would completely understand why I was shocked. And also pleased, since he is my brother) Anyway, his pronouncement upon first seeing the apartment was: "Katie, you're in the ghetto. You've officially moved to a third-world country." His reasons for that assessment were this: no dishwasher, a population that is roughly 70% Latino (with a 23% student population and 7% cranky-old-man population), a gaping holing of sub-floor, one window that wouldn't open, and a larger-than-usual average of cinder block.
Once all of the boxes had been unloaded and the helpers left, my roommate said, "I'll have you know we're only living in a second-world country. I've lived in a third world country." (At which point I thought, but didn't say, "Trust me, I remember. When we were looking at apartments, you were excited if they had water, tending to forget that pretty much all places in America have that amenity.")
As time has worn on, we've had our share of challenges. The pipes are musical and apparently unable or unworthy of being fixed. Not sure which, although the landlord actually looked at them a while ago. We identify the D sharp tone now with five minutes of our own thoughts being driven out by the noise of the pipes.
The gaping hole of subfloor in the bathroom didn't get fixed until September, after some literal haranguing on my part and some well-done smoothing over while yet impressing the necessity of actually having tile in our bathroom on my roommate's part.
And then there is the joy that is our furnace. We went through an insanely cold spell in October and our furnace was inoperable because nobody had actually bothered to connect all of the power pipes when they installed the thing. Oh, how I wish I were kidding about that. My roommate and I spent that whole week wearing sweaters and huddled under multiple blankets.
Then, the latest with our furnace: I ran a few errands Saturday afternoon and came back to an apartment that smelled like gas. Because I have an extremely sensitive nose, I (in typical fashion) presumed that it wasn't too worrisome a situation. Till my roommate got home and she noticed it. Then we called my dad who talked us through a bunch of steps for lighting a pilot light before we realized that--hey!--our furnace is electric. Then he realized that, in all reality, we should call the gas company.
The very nice gas company person came and we got an education on how our furnace works. There were two leaks. He mended one, but the other is internal. I'd explain the technicalities of it, but I'm pretty sure I don't have the same capacity as the very nice man of explaining how it actually works. Our furnace is now tagged and though we're not as cold as we were, it would be nice to go for a good long while without having any other maintenance issues. Is that too much to ask??
I'm beginning to think my brother's right. I live in a third-world country.
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