We like our apartment. It's a loft with red brick walls, which we're savoring before returning to a place with much stricter earthquake codes. We have one grid of windows that goes all the way up to the ceiling. The view is a sprawling canopy of leaves, having filtered the sunlight for us during summer, now slowly shedding. The location can't be beat: 4 blocks to the subway; a 10-minute walk to more cafes and restaurants than we can try; 15 minutes to the largest park in the city.
Before renewing our lease, we had looked around at other places. There were other neighborhoods we were interested in, and it would've been nice to upgrade some amenities like the size of our kitchen. But whatever amenities those other places had, none had the same character as where we decided to stay.
Character is not just charm, though. It's also quirks—those things that don't really affect your ability to live comfortably, but are a little annoying and eventually should be addressed. By that definition, I have to say this is the quirkiest apartment I have ever lived in. Enough so that I felt compelled to chronicle all the events that led me to that conclusion. Following is a list of things that allow an apartment to, as Calvin's dad would say, build character.
As Is
Baby unsafe. Upstairs, the only thing protecting the edge from downstairs is a single railing at hip height that I wouldn't trust with my weight. At first we were paranoid that we would roll off in our sleep, and even thought about getting baby netting. But we're used to it now. It's also pretty convenient for throwing laundry up and down.
Banshee sink. The cold water tap on the bathroom sink starts to squeal always at the precise amount of cold water you want, forcing you to either burn your hands or turn it into a fire hose. We found this out on the first night; it felt like an omen of what we were in for.
Cold iron. A consequence of renting a furnished apartment is that there are more things that have the opportunity to break. Our iron didn't work from the start, and it's the first of a series of communications with our landlord that surely became her most dreaded WhatsApp notification.
Relativistic microwave. The clock on our microwave cannot tell time. It's off by several minutes a day, so it's useless within a week. A reference to "Argentine time" here would be too easy...
Repairs
The Toilet, Part I. Our toilet tank starts leaking, through the flusher onto the floor. A week after reporting it, our landlord comes and tries to fix it herself (while wearing a full cast on her arm—we didn't ask what happened). The leak continues, so another week later, a plumber arrives and stops the leak. Thus ends Part I.
Leaky ceiling. With the first rainstorms of the spring, we start to notice some wet spots on the table and floor. Soon enough, water stains start to form on our ceiling. Three weeks after reporting the leaks, we ask if there's any news. "Not really." Three months later, we are informed that nothing has been done. However, the leaks seem to have stopped because the upstairs neighbors did some renovations on their patio. A problem that very gradually solved itself.
Aircon gone. Our air conditioner stops working right as summer is ramping up. We know how serious this is and follow up on our requests like crazy. It's fixed within days! This would be a highlight in efficiency.
Cold oven. Not long after the aircon repair, we can no longer light our oven. This happens around the same time that we notice...
A crack in the window. We don't know how it happened. We report everything at once: "Good news, the aircon is fixed! However..." The landlord's response, verbatim: "Uuhh! What's happening?" The oven is fixed in a couple weeks; the crack remains unresolved.
Overflow
Toast. We turn on our toaster one day, and it makes weird noises and starts to smoke. The landlord tells us it is our responsibility to fix it. Have we pulled the last straw? I remain indignant, since it was not new when we received it, and we'd been using it normally.
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| Normally, given the amount of space we have in our kitchen. |
Cutting corners. I rip my shorts (and some skin) getting caught on a jagged corner of our glass and metal table.
Wirelessless. Our internet goes down for a week. That's more than a "quirk"—that's debilitation of a basic life need. We seek refuge in cafes and by fleeing to Uruguay.
The Toilet, Part II. Five months later, the leak is back. It's the same problem as before and we report it. One week passes before our landlord responds and tells us to call the plumber. Two weeks after calling, the plumber actually shows up. By this point, I've done enough internet research and tinkering on my own to be curious about the plumber's solution. Here it is:
Without going into too much detail about toilets, I will try to explain what you're looking at. The plumber attached the float (the white thing on the left) to the trip lever (the black thing on the bottom) using what looks like shoelace. This is to keep the float from getting stuck on the tank wall on the way up, because it's not properly aligned. He did this last time too, and I tried to explain that the lace will get loose, but he was confident that it wouldn't (again). In the middle of the photo is the overflow pipe, which is supposed to direct water into the toilet bowl if the tank overfills. Except the pipe opening is higher than where the flusher is, so water leaks out of the flusher instead. The plumber's solution here was to break part of the overflow pipe so that it would be "lower" than the flusher. No one said creative solutions had to be elegant.
The next thing. You can never predict how long a period of peace will last. Sometimes, when we wash our hands in the bathroom, bubbles start coming out of the floor drain—that has potential.
And yet, we renewed our lease. And we'd do it again. After all, these are the "problems" of living in a neighborhood called Palermo SoHo. It's never that bad when the first thing we see when we walk into our apartment is the view out the window.
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| But seriously, that crack's not getting any smaller. |