Leaky Radiators, Not Just for Cars Anymore.

This has been one of those weeks. 

Wednesday night, at 11pm almost exactly, the power in my apartment went out. 

I was mildly annoyed, but not enough to get out of my warm bed and figure anything out. 

I called my agent in the morning and told her that the power was out. She said she'd send "the fix man" to flip the breaker, and further investigate. 

At 7:40am, as I was winding my scarf around my neck to leave, I heard a weird whooshing, watery sound. At first, I decided that it was something going on on the roof. But being the prudent renter that I am, I walked back into my apartment and checked. The noise was definitely coming from the mantel-like enclosure that houses the heater in my living room. Now, remember here that my power is still out, so I couldn't actually SEE anything. I used my phone to shine a light in through the mesh, and caught the distinct reflection of water. 

Yep, water was spraying out of the radiator, and filling the little enclosure. 

This is the heater enclosure, after the screen and heater were removed.
The pink soap you see there was used, somehow, to patch the hole in the
heater. I'm not sure how that works, exactly. But it did. 

I called my agent again and informed her of the situation. 

She said "I'll call the fix man. You go to work first." 

This seemed like a bad idea, to me. But I laid out a couple towels next to the enclosure, and hoped that I wouldn't return to a completely flooded apartment. 

Luckily, Super Husband was the one to actually step in and take care of everything. 

But not until after the water had leaked into the apartment below, thereby enraging the downstairs neighbors. 

Apparently Super Husband endured an irate termagant screaming in his face. 

I'm sorry for him, but glad that it wasn't me. At least he could understand some of what she was actually saying, and respond. 

I'm sure I would have just stoked her ire by repeating "Wo ting bu dong" (I don't understand). 

The heat to the entire building had to be shut off.

The landlord apologized to the neighbors. 

When I returned home a little after 5:30 Super Husband, the landlord, and the "fix man" were sitting around the living room, chatting and waiting for some other men to come and remove the offending heater, and the heater in the bathroom, which was deemed unsatisfactory. 

 

While the two men who were tasked with removing the heater were here the front door was left open. 

Apparently this is seen as an invitation for anyone venturing past, or near, to come inside and offer their opinion on how best to remove the heater. 

A rather heated discussion between the fix man, the heater men, and two men who I believe are my neighbors ensued. I have no idea who won the argument, but the upshot was that the heaters were removed. 

Only after both neighbors had the gall to actually smoke inside of my apartment. 

They managed to make my bathroom look like the most disgusting of public toilets, as well. I should probably take a picture, just so that everyone can see the damage. 

But I'll wait until the people that are replacing my leaking water heater leave. 

They're sure to make it even more... picturesque.

Isn't this lovely?
I assure you, my bathroom is not normally host to broken buckets,
weird iron stools, or any amount of dirty brown muck. 

 The upshot of this whole episode is that the leaking water heater has been replaced, and I should be able to count on the fact that the radiators will be in good working order until they're no longer needed... Right?