Cord Caper
In the cellar there is a spot where each of the two apartments can hook up a washer and dryer, with the power and hot water drawn from the appropriate places. Each spot has a pair of standard electrical outlets, too, for whatever use.
In our case, I hung a drop light down there to carry into the dark parts of the cellar where the ceiling lights have been disabled. Somewhere along the line, I needed the light outside for car work. I got my good outside extension cord, plugged that in, and the drop light into that. I left it that way, with the cord in our washer/dryer area and the light hanging there.
Several weeks ago, creepy maintenance guy, who has steadily grown on us and become less creepy, and their new electrician, did some wiring work to add an outlet on the back outside wall of the house.
Afterward, Deb found the drop light sort of flung across the cellar, unplugged.
We plugged it back in, but neither of us noticed the extension cord was missing. Which is kind of odd, as it’s a heavy duty, long cord with a clear female end that lights up with an orange LED when the cord is plugged in and getting current. I think it’s 50 feet, or maybe it’s 30 feet. Long, anyway. I bought it to use with an electric grass trimmer.
This weekend I decided to put my old battery charger on the van, running the extension cord out to the driveway, rather than squeezing beside it to jump it so it could be moved.
No cord.
Then I remembered the incident with the drop light being unplugged and casually strewn. I searched the cellar, didn’t find it, and called the landlord about it Monday. Meanwhile, I jumped the van and moved it to the other driveway, but cars are another post. Though in short, I am pretty convinced that the primary problem with it currently stems from having not been put back together properly by the mechanic last time it was worked on. And we’re at something like 90% certain we will just plain get rid of the van in the near future.
We put the “accidentally took it with them after borrowing it for their work” approach. Or they assumed it was the landlord’s, but as they told me, they still should have left it there.
They got back to me today, having determined it was in the electrician’s truck. At the latest, I’ll get it back when we meet them, probably sometime next week, to check the apartment and return my security deposit. Which I’ll need more than I had anticipated, so it’s nice they’re in a hurry to get it back to me ASAP on exactly that assumption.
I have mixed feelings, because in some ways they are cool. It’s just that the rental property isn’t their priority, and they are all too willing to cut corners. I noticed the other day that the 2nd floor’s furnace has a puddle around it, is leaking even worse than it has in the past, and is so rusted out in places it looks like it’s going to fall apart. That, plus the heat incident this past winter, knowing they needed but didn’t get new circulator pumps, makes me think we’ll be dodging major failure in the months after we leave. But I digress.
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