Last weekend, the heater in my apartment stopped working right. Not a great thing for winter in Denver (though it has been a mild one so far). Still, the fireplace I have in my apartment kept things from being unbearable until maintenance could get up here to fix it (which they did promptly on Monday).
The heater is in the same utility closet as my water heater. You may recall me having mentioned it a while back, noting that the door was probably supposed to be locked, but wasn't. Well now, following the heater repair, it is.
Now, I wasn't storing anything in there. I've only had to get in there once in the whole time I've lived here, to relight the water heater. And I could have called maintenance to do that. So I suppose I don't actually need to get in there.
And yet... I can't help but be just slightly bothered. Well, bothered is far too strong a word. But I have this little tiny itch I can't scratch, just slightly annoying, because now there's this tiny nook in the place I live where I'm not allowed to go. I'm almost inclined to try to "credit card" my way past the lock (it's not too complicated) just to unlock the door on the inside so it will be open again.
Possibly this is some very tiny little voice in my head, speculating that if oh... say... my water heater were ever to burst into flames spontaneously, I'd be able to use my fire extinguisher to put it out before the whole place went up.
Or possibly this is just some bizarre strain of OCD, and I'm making way too much out of nothing at all.
5 comments:
I suspect that landlords, working on the (probably justified) assumption that most people don't know jack about using a fire extinguisher, don't really want the tenants trying to put out fires, but would rather they call the fire department immediately.
Besides, the apartment itself is covered by the landlord's insurance. Just make sure you have renter's insurance for your stuff, and if the water heater bursts into flames, get the hell out.
eeyseqgz
I think you might have a paranoia of water heaters for the rest of your life
Your situation sounds a lot like my couple of years in my college dorm at Ohio State. We had a "hatch" for lack of a better word in the wall next to my desk. We were on the fourth floor of an old building with a slanted roof so it went into the attic crawlspace. The university padlocked the door so we couldn't get in. What we did, was take a hacksaw blade and cut off the bottom "knob" of the hinge pins. This allowed us to slip the pin out and open the door without taking the padlock off. What we found, was unlimited storage potential and a pathway into the girls' hallway. Unfortunately, we couldn't convince them to hacksaw their door open.
By the way, we did call our newfound clubhouse "The Batcave".
Mark, Mark, Mark...that is THE Ohio State not just Ohio State.
Seriously Evan, I think you'll just have a water heater issue for the rest of your life.
Hmm...living in the building next door to Evan, the door on MY water heater closet doesn't even have the ability to be locked. I can open it whenever I want. What have they set up in there that they don't want you to know about? :P
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