Apartment sagas, updated
Feb. 18th, 2004 09:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidDuring the day yesterday, there was an apology and an explanation sent out by the owners of the alarm. Apparently something went wrong with their smoke detector. Since it went off again after they were home, they've since purchased new ones, so presumably it will not happen again.
This morning there was a foil-wrapped package by my door (looking rather like mishloach manot), with another apology. When I unwrapped it, I found a bunch of white and dark chocolate chunk cookies, which I've put out for the orkers. I hope they appreciate it.
On the heating front: I emailed the house asking about finding out about the pilot light on my furnace (since the basement is still blocked off for mold remediation), and this morning heard that indeed, the pilot is out. I'm not impressed with the mold guys right now, who have not only taken longer than planned (by a factor of 3 now, I think), but apparently either kept the basement window by my furnace open so much of the time that it blew out, or something.
Anyway. There wasn't time this morning (I overslept; I find it much harder to judge the time on overcast mornings), so tonight I will be attempting to relight the pilot on my (old) gas furnace. I've lit pilot lights for ovens and such before, so I'm hoping it's not much different. Does anyone have experience with this to tell me one way or the other? (ie, it's pretty similar, I'll be fine, or it's a technical thing unknowledgeable people should not attempt.)
This morning there was a foil-wrapped package by my door (looking rather like mishloach manot), with another apology. When I unwrapped it, I found a bunch of white and dark chocolate chunk cookies, which I've put out for the orkers. I hope they appreciate it.
On the heating front: I emailed the house asking about finding out about the pilot light on my furnace (since the basement is still blocked off for mold remediation), and this morning heard that indeed, the pilot is out. I'm not impressed with the mold guys right now, who have not only taken longer than planned (by a factor of 3 now, I think), but apparently either kept the basement window by my furnace open so much of the time that it blew out, or something.
Anyway. There wasn't time this morning (I overslept; I find it much harder to judge the time on overcast mornings), so tonight I will be attempting to relight the pilot on my (old) gas furnace. I've lit pilot lights for ovens and such before, so I'm hoping it's not much different. Does anyone have experience with this to tell me one way or the other? (ie, it's pretty similar, I'll be fine, or it's a technical thing unknowledgeable people should not attempt.)
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-18 07:21 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-18 07:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-18 08:23 am (UTC)Good luck.
Oh, and it's good to hear that the neighbors with the offending noise seem to realize the magnitude of the problem. I hope that's the end of that.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-18 08:47 am (UTC)And yes, I'll definitely err on the side of caution. I'd just like to avoid paying for someone professional (aka expensive) to come out to do something simple. Hm... if someone does have to come out, I may point out to the remediator that they caused this issue and should cover the expense.
Yes, I'm glad the neighbors realized it as well; they're the neighbors most prone to loud music later at night than I'm used to and other such issues, so I wasn't sure. And the orkers apparently liked the cookies, since they're already gone.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-18 09:59 am (UTC)The long matches will work much better. If you're holding a match with tongs or some such, it's too easy to bump the match (turning it inconveniently), drop it, etc -- at which point you'll be tempted to improvise. Note of experience: newspaper twisted up to make a poor man's long match burns faster than you think it will.
I'd just like to avoid paying for someone professional (aka expensive) to come out to do something simple.
I'm with you on that! Maybe there's a neighbor who could help? Does this building have a local caretaker? This would be part of his job if so. And beating up on the contractors who caused the problem is definitely worth trying; I'm just pesimistic about success.
Good luck!
Re:
Date: 2004-02-18 10:05 am (UTC)There's no caretaker; I live in a small (4 unit) building that's all condos. I don't know if the neighbors have any particular skill with this, but if someone's around tonight, I might try to get one of them to come down with me, just in case.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-18 12:52 pm (UTC)This is not quite the same situation, but ... when I got my first apartment, during my second year of college, I was for some reason terrfied at the thought of lighting the burners on my gas stove. (It was an old stove that didn't light automatically.) So I had this whole elaborate set-up: I'd hold a match in a pair of tongs, use a lighter to light the match, and then hold it to the burner to light it. I never thought of using long matches -- maybe you could find those at a hardware store, or a furniture store that sells fireplace gear?
Re:
Date: 2004-02-18 01:24 pm (UTC)I remember feeling odd about lighting burners with a match the first time I lived with a gas stove, too, though I never managed the tongs variation. Instead, I'd stand as far away as I could, trying to be ready to jump away if things went wrong. Electronic ignition is so much easier (though much less useful for yom tov!).
Re:
Date: 2004-02-18 01:39 pm (UTC)