At 6am this morning, I was awoken by a loud noise. Didn't know what. But I drifted back to a slight sleep as I didn't have to be to work til 10:30.
An hour later, I heard another noise. It was much louder. My voice quivered as I asked the Mr. what that noise was. He walked to every room of our apartment and we knew it was not good.
It happened a few minutes later. It sounded like a small explosion coming from the boiler room below us. I was starting to panic. The Mr. got on the phone and started leaving early morning voice mails for the landlord, his assistant, the maintenance guy....nobody answered. The landlord texted him back telling us he was 'out of town.'
The Mr. called 311. Another explosion happened and things started falling off the bathroom walls as I was trying to get ready to take a shower. It has been snowing for two days now and I threw all my old clothes back on because I was terrified I would have to run outside naked in the snow.
311 deduced that they better call the fire department. I started knocking on the neighbors' doors but all the dogs in the building were barking so loudly that nobody was awake enough to hear me. I heard the fire engine come and ran down to greet them. I threw on some boots and led them to our boiler room, which none of the tenants have keys for so they debated knocking down the door. But I didn't smell gas so there was nothing they could really do. It was a little ridiculous standing in the snow with six Chicago fire fighters when there was no actual fire, but they assured us the Mr. did the right thing reporting the BANGS and that this needed to be addressed IMMEDIATELY. I don't know if the landlords ever get citations or anything when nobody responds to an emergency situation, but I can tell you there are a lot of greedy landlords in this city who own WAAAAAY too many properties and they can't possibly keep up with them all...and I just recently calculated that we have paid this particular landlord over $80,000 in rent over the last seven years.
The firemen assured me that there wasn't any imminent danger and suggested we keep hounding the building owners to get an HVAC expert out immediately. We have old steam heat and sometimes the heavy minerals of Chicago water can cause a buildup and valves don't work and pressure builds. No gas, just vapors. But pipes can explode. And it can be very very bad.
So I decide to try and take my shower again and in the middle of my shampoo rinse BOOOOOOOOM...the walls shake and my perfume and nail polish bottles fall off the shelves and onto the floor. I yell and panic but I have to get this shampoo out of my hair so I gave my hair one last douse of water and dried and got dressed so quickly as if my life depended on it and was shivering to the bone.
The poor cat was traumatized. The dogs in every apartment were barking. I left the Mr. to hound the maintenance guy and threw on a ton of clothes and ran to the bus to go to work and get to somewhere I felt safe. I had to sit in a restaurant for an hour and catch my breath and reached out to friends on Facebook, who just freaked me out more telling me what a dangerous situation it was.
The Mr. got the maintenance guy out and the repairman came and deduced the heat is not safe to use in our building. The temperature is dropping quickly....it is currently 7 degrees and will get down to -2 tonight. Monday it was will be -15. Not including wind chill. That's NEGATIVE FIFTEEN.
So I was jumpy all day at work. I kept hearing explosions in my head all day. I taught a coworker from California how to shovel Chicago snow and bonded with all the customers coming in from the cold. Because that's how Chicagoans get through the tough winters. They bond.
And I have finally crept home to find all the other eight tenants in my building packing up bags to go sleep somewhere else tonight. It's not terribly cold in here right now, but it's seeping in. I am packing a bag. And putting on layers. The Mr. gets home in a few hours and we will decide if we are going to rough it with no heat tonight or go to his parents. The landlord offered to deduct a one night hotel stay from our rent. I'm thinking we deserve the RITZ tonight.
But Thank God, for real, that an explosion didn't occur. This morning scared the shit out of me.
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