I’m not at all superstitious. Black cats and stepladders do not intimidate me. But this past March I bought a beautiful apartment in West Palm Beach in a great building and in a very convenient location. Two bedrooms, two baths (the master bath is so large, it could probably be rented as a studio apartment in Manhattan) and a lovely terrace facing west on which it is so hot in the afternoon, the terrace is useless but the good news is I can see the gorgeous Florida sunset. Great, right? Wrong. If I were superstitious, I’d swear the place is cursed.
The first disaster happened shortly after moving in: the
master bath toilet flooded. In came the plumber, did something or other
and it worked until – a few days later it started to overflow again. Back
came the plumber, diagnosed the problem once again and announced I needed a new
toilet that he installed the same day. Problem #1: Dry.
Shortly thereafter, the next disaster occurred:
outlets in the kitchen not working. Believe it or not, there are twelve,
yes twelve outlets in the kitchen that is large but not humongous. One
morning I turned on my toaster oven and nothing happened. I moved it to
another outlet and again nothing. Now the electrician arrived, found that
the master outlet was screwed up, returned the next day, replaced it and
voila! All twelve worked. Problem # 2: Relighted.
Next came the flood from the washing machine drenching the
carpeting in front of it. The repair man arrived, checked it out, found
nothing wrong and thought that the load I had washed was not evenly distributed
and told me the machine was OK. Amusingly enough, the next day I tried to
do a load of laundry and no water emerged. What? The building
maintenance man, a gem, arrived, checked it out and found the repairman had
turned off the hot water. He turned it back on and the machine
worked. Problem #3: Wet.
But what to do with the soaking wet carpeting? The
building maintenance man arrived once again with the largest fan I had ever
seen, turned it on with what seemed like hurricane force that ran for
forty-eight hours. Now dry, the sanitizer man came to make sure there was
no mold and then the carpet man showed up to put the carpeting back on the
tackless. Problem #4: Dry again.
The problems never seemed to end. The exhaust fan in
the master bathroom sounded as thought it were taking off from the Palm Beach
Airport; the DVR box malfunctioned so badly, a technician visited, couldn’t
repair it and replaced it; my phone lines, courtesy of Comcast, had a nervous
breakdown and people couldn’t hear me; the terrace door needed a two hundred
pound very strong man to open and close it until a wonderful man who works in
the building sprayed some gook on the base and without much effort, I could
slide it. Problems # 5: Quiet, #6: Viewable and #7: Smooth sliding.
But the worst of all was the dishwasher. I am
one of those people who rinse the dishes before putting them in the machine but
strangely enough, they emerged dirtier than before the machine ran and the dishes
were covered with white stuff and grit. The people in the building
advised me that Florida has very hard water and that was the problem. I asked
if anyone else in the building complained about this. No. I
wondered if the people here were slobs, didn’t use their machines, never
noticed or they didn’t give a damn.
So after calling in the man from GE, a plumber, a man from
the Palm Beach Water Department and the maintenance man – neither one having a
solution, finally I called the Culligan man who arrived with his chemistry set
and he tested the water. Turns out that calcium is measured on a scale of
one to ten (who knew?) and the calcium level in my water was a whopping nine
causing my dishwasher to deliver dirty dishes. Mr. Culligan told me that
unfortunately there was nothing he could sell me to correct the problem. I was crazed.
Luckily I have a friend back in NY from whence I came and
told him this shaggy dishwasher story. Genius that he is, he had a
solution. He said, “Run the dishwasher empty with a cup of distilled
vinegar to clean the pipes and then put a cup of vinegar into the machine with
every load.” Problem #8: Pristine clean.
This handy bit of information was dispensed to all the
residents in the condo’s monthly newsletter and the concierge told me he had
received many compliments re the vinegar. I asked him if he gave proper
credit. Nope. So much for being a good citizen.
Mr. Culligan also checked the water emerging from the fridge
door and informed me not to drink it because it has more chlorine than a
swimming pool. His suggestion was to use purified water for drinking,
coffee, etc. I am now a major purchaser of purified water at Publix. Problem 9: De-chlorined.
Next came the clothes dryer. I was informed that the
exhaust hose had to have the lint removed so the repairman arrived to do just
that. He informed me he couldn’t because the hose was falling apart and
needed replacing. The part arrived, was attached and works. Problem
#9: Bye bye lint.
I have now been here a little over seven months and I can’t
help wondering what will go wrong next. Should I have a nervous breakdown
or just laugh it off and accept the fact that if anything can go wrong, it
usually does.
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