(no subject)

[which_chick]

If you call my house at 2:30 AM in the wee hours of Friday morning following Thanksgiving Day to tell me that you have no heat, I am going to ask you if you have any fuel in your fuel tank. I am not asking this question to be rude. I am not trying to be smart. I am asking if there is fuel in the fuel tank because lack of fuel is the number one reason for your furnace to be not-making-heat when it's been working properly all month and all week and all day up until right now. I understand that it's ten degrees out (with windchill). I understand that you have a sixteen month old baby. I understand that it's 2:30 AM and that you're cold and that you have no heat in your apartment. I understand. I am asking the "Do you have any fuel in the tank?" (Yes. Of course.) "Are you sure?" (Certainly. Do you think I'm stupid?) questions because I want to help you solve your heat problem and because I've been told, over and over, by people who have far more experience than I have at this, that tenants are rarely, if ever, able to correctly answer the question Is there fuel in your furnace's fuel tank?.

When you've convinced me that there is fuel in your tank and that I am a daft bint for even asking, I and my meager furnace skills will drive to your house in the middle of this very dark, cold, windy night to see if I can figure out why your furnace isn't running. By the time I get there, it'll be 3:00 AM. I'd like it if you would not get shitty with me for asking, again, if you have fuel in the furnace fuel tank. It'd also be nice if you could be less shitty to me when, after I've called the furnace professional and he has stated that he can't get furnace parts until morning anyway, I inform you that there isn't much I can do until around 8:30 AM rolls around and we can buy parts. There are no stores open to buy furnace parts at 3:00 AM in our little redneck town. I'm sorry about that, but that is the way it is. I am not lying to you just to be difficult or just to make you suffer in the cold, so you could be, y'know, a little less scathing in your commentary.

The following morning, when the actual furnace professional and I re-examine your problem in the clear light of day (though I've had about four hours of sleep), I would appreciate it if you were a little more apologetic about your previous shittiness when we determine that (a) the fuel gauge on your furnace fuel tank is broken and (b) there is no fucking fuel in your furnace fuel tank, a small fact that goes a hell of a long way towards explaining why you don't have any heat.

Thank you,

Your Landlord

Comments

[ladyivy.livejournal.com]

When our heater broke midday on a weekend down in Springfield, all we could do was leave a message since our landlord did not have a live person on the other end of the phone outside of M-F 9-5 business hours. And what this tenant thought you could do at 2:30-3AM in the first place I have no idea, regardless of being shirty with you when she woke you up to complain about something you weren't going to be able to wave a magic wand and fix. That was just plain rude.