I don't intend to completely vilify our new landlord S in this post, but as you'll see, ultimately, he is the one controlling the heater here. (Yes, I'm complaining here, but you'd be surprised how bitter you can become when you're cold.) So over the summer our triplex came under new ownership, and maybe that was S's misfortune to succeed one of the best landlords we've ever had. The previous owner K stopped by at least once a month to not only get rent checks, but simply to check up on things (in a nice way). Sometimes she will have been in a cooking mood and she'd bring over marinated meats, or these delectable "cracker" peanuts that you just can't stop eating. Even though it wasn't part of the lease, she was very diligent about having our walkway shoveled and sanded, and making sure someone came to plow and sand/salt our break-neck-steep driveway whenever it snowed, which was quite a lot last year. And, lately, on the mornings I wake up freezing cold, I remember particularly how generous K was with the heat. (The landlord pays for the gas heater; the tenants take care of their own electricity. This is an important point to remember for later.)
It was one of the first cold days of the autumn (with the new landlord) when we went to go turn the heat up – and nothing happened. No heat, i.e. cold heating units. S was good enough to have someone by that afternoon to have a go at the problem and we were warmer, though not happily so, that evening. Little did we suspect that that would be the start of our chronic heating issue this winter. Maybe it's the language barrier because the first couple of times S thought we were trying to say that we weren't getting heat. But after we established that we were getting (some) heat, S's first solution was to replace our supposedly broken old school thermostat with a digital one. Every time we'd complain, he'd come up, fiddle with the unit, and pronounce that things were working fine because the temperature would suddenly jump up three degrees (from the heat off his fingers touching the sensors). Then, when we still weren't satisfied, he called up a friend (credentials?), who was kind enough to come by and tell him that the heater works just fine. And later the friend was even kind enough to come tell me that the heater works. ...Thanks. Of course I can feel for myself that there's heat coming out of the things. That's not the problem. I expect gobs of heat when I turn my thermostat up so that I can be roasting if I want, so that I can keep half-naked children comfortable in their own home. I expect that the heater should be able to keep up with demand when the temperature outside drops below 20 degrees, which it can't, or at least not like it could last year...for some reason. (We have our suspicions that S is trying to save some money.) It got so that we were suspicious of the digital thermometer! Turns out, its calibration is a little off, because compared with two other kind of thermometers, it always reads three to four degrees higher. Nowadays, the thermostat is always cranked up as high as it will go (82 degrees) – on good days, we're lucky if we can break 74 degrees (avg temp of 3 thermometers) and, on the cold days, it never makes it above 68 or 69 degrees (avg).
When Drew was out of town in January, it got down into the negatives one week and I got so that I was so cold that I was on the verge of tears. So I packed up the girls and we went down to Lowe's and bought a space heater, which we took out of rent this month. Incidentally, that was the night the friend with questionable credentials came by to tell me that the heater works. He also told me that a space heater would "solve" my problems (on our electricity). So they brought me a second space heater, which ended up being this piddley little thing that puts out even less heat than the one I bought, the kind that requires you to sit right up next to it in order to get any impression. These last few days, I've been thankful for the clear skies so that the sun can shine full-force into our kitchen and thereby impart some heat.
I'll concede that our major problem has to do with our single-pane windows, which S has said he plans on replacing this summer. Didn't think they still existed? They do in our apt. And for the windows that open, the matter is exacerbated by these archaic latch systems that require "force" in order to get them to close all the way. On the nights we run the humidifier, we get sheets of ice built up on the window, which force the window back open. Not only do we suffer from perpetual drafts, but there's also a constant condensation hanging onto all the windows – more often than not, it's frozen into ice or frost. And of course there's a mess of water stained carpet and moldy sills when it's warm enough to melt. So as I was returning home the other evening, it dawned on me: we live in the oldest part of the house! Even though I see their windows everyday, sometimes two and three times a day, I suddenly realized that none of the windows on the other two units have condensation on them, which must mean that they have newer two-pane windows. Which would explain why we're the only ones complaining about the lack of heat. (After you've seen all the nooks and crannies of this place, you'll know that this building was not originally a triplex.) As we eek into spring, I hope we have less of the unbearably frigid days so I can manage a little better in the mornings. And I hope that we can move out of this joint soon.
