After
a longer than expected evening at the lodge (for good reason), I headed back to
the apartment only to find that the fire department was using the front
driveway of the building as a parking lot. It’s kind of sad, but this happens
so often that I didn’t think much of it as I walked across the parking lot and
opened the door. However, as soon as I put down my work bag I knew that it was
going to be one of those nights. Within moments of walking through the kitchen
and pulling the strap off my shoulder, the fire alarm began blaring.
Both
from living in the building and working the front desk, I knew that this wasn’t
going to go away quickly so I headed to the lobby to try and get some
additional information on the situation. Can’t say that I was surprised when no
one really knew what was going on at first and the president of the board
refused to do anything beyond sitting in a chair and holding out her hand so
the passersby could more easily kiss the ring. 45 minutes later and a couple of
culprits emerged, neither of which involved smoke or fire.
As
it turns out there was a faulty sensor in the pump room and some dust also got
into the detector in one of the hallways 6 months finally getting drywall
replaced 6-8 months after the bust pipe. With my wife only a few minutes away
after her long day at work, I was glad that things seemed to be getting resolved.
I really should know better!
Having
not had time to eat before the debacle, I made a small snack as we talked about
all that had happened during our days and the mess that was unfolding in the
building. We got into bed around 11:00 and began slowly settling into sleep
since we both had a long day ahead of us. With our eyes nearly sealed for the
night, we jumped out of bed at 11:30 when the alarm began blaring again. Keep
in mind that this was not for the whole building, just our apartment as they
were testing the system.
We
walked up to the front desk, quite perturbed by this point, and tried to figure
out what was going on especially since the fire department was no longer
present. Turns out that the fire department forced them to turn off the boiler
until they could get the sensor problem figured out. They decided to continue working
on the sensor issue so that they could turn on the hot water by morning.
I
didn’t sleep well during the night. I would later find out that the alarm
continued to go off throughout the night just long enough to wake us up but not
long enough for us to realize what was forcing us to open our eyes. However, I
was wide awake when the cold water hit my head in the morning. So, after little
quality sleep during the night it was a cold shower in the morning. Just the
latest thing to add to the list and that much more incentive to find somewhere
else to live by the time our lease is up… I’m already looking forward to
spring!
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