12.22.2009

Baptism by Fire

Remember when I told you about the man eating dog at our old apartment? And that we moved because we didn't feel safe?

















Things at the new place didn't exactly start of well...






















After a marathon of finishing finals, packing, and moving everything we owned in a span of a week, John and I settled in for our first night in the new apartment. While I was drying my hair, the lights dimmed a little bit, though I thought nothing of it. Sometimes that happens, and everything goes back to normal.

Then I came into the kitchen that smelled distinctly like smoke. Not just like hot metal, but burning wood. In our house. We noticed that there was smoke coming from the fuse box and that it was kind of popping. John called 911 while I tried to find a fire extinguisher in the building where we'd lived for approximately 3 hours. 911 told us to get out of the apartment, and then the firemen came!

I thought about throwing a fist into the air Dwight-style when they got there, but I was too distracted by the possible electrical fire in our apartment.

The firemen assured us that there was no fire. They shut the power off in the unit, let us up to find a change of clothes, and sent us away for the night. They also said, and I agree, that this was the best way for this to have happened; John and I were going to run the space heater in our room over night and probably wouldn't have noticed anything was wrong.

Here's the good part: our landlord has handled the whole thing really well. She offered to pay for a hotel, called every day before we left for Fort Wayne to see if she could help us in some way, and had her own electrician come inspect it to make a plan for repairs on Sunday, even though the official fire department inspector couldn't come until Monday. I believe her when she says it will be fixed. I feel like we finally have a landlord who acts like an adult and takes responsibility, even when it's not her fault. It sucks that this happened on our first night there, but she seems to be using it as an opportunity to show us that she means business.

So there you have it - our dramatic flee from the new apartment. Now we're in Fort Wayne for Christmas, where we can just sleep, cook, eat, sleep, cook, eat, and walk the dogs.

3 comments:

  1. Good Lord, Abby! You two have some of the worst apartment luck, don't you? I'm so glad your landlord is a decent human being this time.

    Have fun in Fort Wayne!

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  2. Thanks. Yes, it was kind of a crazy couple of weeks. I hope you have a good vacation, too!

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  3. Okay, I read "man eating dog" as a man who eats dog. I think I've been in Korea too long.

    Merry Christmas!

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