From the refrigerator into the freezer…
Once again, I have good news and I have bad news.
The good news is that I retooled the neck of “Time” and now it is perfect. You may, however, be wondering why there is no accompanying picture. Well, then. Shall we proceed to the bad news?
The bad news is that our furnace died an unceremonious death sometime during the night of February 6th. We woke up on Wednesday morning to discover that it was 48 degrees in the house.
It has remained 48 degrees in the house ever since.
Our lying, cheapskate, craphound landlord has made arrangements to have an entirely new furnace put in, but that will take a couple of days (!!%$#@^&). Of course, he might have thought of this twenty years ago, when the furnace was only forty years old rather than sixty years old, and he might have thought of this during the summer. What I’m telling you here is that this crisis was inevitable and that a certain neglectful sumbitch just didn’t care enough to avert it.
Speaking of that same sumbitch, do you know that he actually had the audacity to tell me just yesterday that the furnace was “only 10 years old”? Like I don’t have eyes.
Meanwhile, I am staying in a hotel and charging it to him. That, I must say, has lit rather a fire under his lazy wazoo, but that’s the only heat that we’re getting around here because there’s only so fast you can get an entirely new furnace installed in the dead of winter. As it turns out.
Until there is heat, there will be no new sweater pictures, I’m afraid. The camera has gone on strike due to unacceptable working conditions.
Shelley Bales, in warmer times. File photo.
February 8th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Boo hiss! That really sucks. Hopefully you’ll get your furnace in asap. I would make the landlord pay for the hotel bill too.
February 8th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
Sorry to hear about your heat problems. I hope it gets better soon! You’d think they would expect people to need new heaters in the winter and keep a lot in stock.
February 8th, 2007 at 3:58 pm
I hope you’re staying someplace expensive… Maybe your new heater will be more efficient, though, and you can redo your budget – a few more degrees?
February 8th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Yikes! Landlords stink. I’d say that there’s a special place in hell getting all toasty for him, but that might sound rather too good for him right this moment.
February 8th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Lovely on Time, but gah on the furnace! Geeze, who needs an ice storm power outage when you have such a thoughtful landlord? Warm hugs to all. Even if the hotel room’s heater is going full blast. (Hey, Laurie – how about one of those hells where it’s cold? [veg])
February 8th, 2007 at 8:49 pm
Wow, and I thought the senior citizens in public housing had it bad when it was 52 degrees in their apartments with snow coming in through a hole in the roof. 48? You don’t even need a refrigerator under conditions like that.
Where are the pets?
Maybe THAT’S what the neighbors wanted to discuss.
February 8th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Well, at least Shelly will get lots of snuggles!
February 8th, 2007 at 11:12 pm
Words cannot describe how insensitive and utterly STUPID your landlord is. But then again, if he is that much of an idiot, he will have NO clue on how much your stay at the Ritz is going to be! 😉 (Like “Home Alone: Lost in NY”)
=:8
February 9th, 2007 at 10:49 am
Thanks, everyone! Still holding at 48 degrees here…
To add a little to the story, did you know that my landlord actually tried very hard to talk me out of going to the hotel by saying that he’d bring over space heaters?
Right. So we could blow a bunch of fuses and *we* could pay the exorbitant electricity costs.
In your dreams, pal.
The pets seem to be doing okay, but we’re keeping them close to the space heaters (the ones we already owned) and putting extra blankets out on the sofa and other places where they like to sit.
February 11th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
That really stinks! hopefully by the time I am making this comment you have a new furnace and are back home. At least you have a warm sweater to help keep you warm!
July 17th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
[…] After all the work we did on that place to make it liveable (six weeks of full time labor initially + ongoing maintenance of the interior and the grounds—all jobs the our landlord flatly refused to do, although they were indubitably his responsibility), after the crisis of the sixty-year-old furnace’s death in the coldest part of the winter, after a million other little insults, lies, and quotidian atrocities we endured at his hands, Mr. Craphound actually had the gall to suggest that we left the stove a little dirty (we scrubbed it until our fingers bled) and that we had stolen a carbon monoxide detector (he never installed such a detector and we are categorically not thieves). […]