I learned the hard way last night that the maintenance person in my building split town more than a week ago with nary a word to the tenants from management. Apartment maintenance people, in my view, are a lot like the U.S. Government. Most of the time, I figure they’re too busy to take care of little things like my leaky faucet, but I expect them to be there when I have an emergency.
Like when I accidentally lock myself out with food cooking on the stove.
Because I’m one multi-tasking SOB, I like to think I can do laundry and cook at the same time, but last night — with asparagus steaming on the stove and the broiler fired for a ribeye — I locked myself out when I went to put the laundry in the dryer.
I knocked on the maintenance guy’s door so he could get me one of those door keys that I’m “absolutely no way supposing to copy,” but he — nor any of the 18 family members who lived there (I would’ve even settled for the toddler who rides his trike through the lobby) — answered. The lights were off. The car he parked illegally in the alley was gone.
After pacing a fine groove in the hallway from my apartment to the maintenance guy’s, I discovered someone else knocking in vain on his door. It just so happened another guy was locked out at the same time. He, luckily, had the foresight to lock himself out with a cell phone, so he tried dialing the “emergency” number the building manager had given him.
From down the hallway, we heard the echo of the house phone ringing in the manager’s darkened and locked office.
Expletives ensued.
I knocked on the door of the guy who lives across from me, hoping he had a more useful “emergency” number or at least some indication of how long it takes for asparagus to combust.
Welcoming me into a tiny studio apartment that seriously was decked out with gold-plated candelabras and an antique fainting chaise and a friggin’ chandelier hanging from the ceiling, he informed me that he found out the maintenance man and the building manager were splitsville over some drama involving the fact that he can’t turn the heat on in the building until at least one person (or small household pet) freezes to death.
I thanked Liberace for the bad news, asked him for a phone book to call a locksmith, and rewarded him for his kindness with a Bounce dryer sheet.
Long story short, it cost the other guy and me $100 apiece for a sum total of 35 seconds of labor (including the time it took to walk from my place to the other guy’s) from the locksmith. The guy opened two big cases fat with tools, removed from one a piece of posterboard, and jimmied my lock open B&E-style before you could say rip-off.
I actually heard God laugh.
So my question is, what’s a renter to do when he’s left home alone with no one responsible for, y’know, keeping the building from falling apart?
In other news, really really really overcooked asparagus stinks up an apartment something awful.