Everything's broken

This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on March 2, 2003). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

Four months ago, workmen started on a two-month project to renovate the apartment building I live in. We’re still waiting for them to finish.

We’ve had to put up with interruptions to every normal service. Electricity, heat, hot water, laundry — all of it has been cut off at one point or another. The laundry, of course, was one of the first things to go, so for the past four months, we’ve had to pay more money to go to a laundromat a few blocks away.

This week, I found out that the laundry facilities had finally reopened. So today, I started trying to do my laundry.

  • One of the washers has its coin slot jammed. Okay, I can cope with that, there’s still two more washers.
  • One of the other two washers occasionally decides to eat your quarters, but not start the wash cycle.
  • One of the dryers won’t even take quarters — the slider doohickey is jammed. Again, there’s two more dryers to work with.
  • The final straw? The original plans called for new electric washers and dryers. Plans changed at some point, so they put back in the old dryers. Gas dryers. In a ‘renovated’ laundry room with no gas hookups. End result? All the dryers are now ‘Air Dry’ only. Any guesses just how dry jeans get with ‘Air Dry’ only? Not at all. So now I’ve got jeans hung on the heater, over doors, over my shower curtain, and I’m just hoping that I’ve got at least one pair that’s actually wearable tomorrow morning.

I’m sick of this.

We’ve lost a good quarter of the tenants because of all the problems with this project. The only thing that’s really kept me here is that I don’t really have the spare cash to just pick up and find a new place. God, I wish I did, though….