C is for Cccccccccold

My bedroom in our apartment has no heat.

Other rooms in the place have heat, but mine gets none.

Charmingly New York as it may be, my landlord is a slumlord of sorts. My roomie who has lived in the apartment for a number of years (well call him Quill) told me that he does things in his own time, and that, since he doesn't know me, my calling him won't help. Quill said his calls woudn't make much a difference either, but at least the landlord knows him, so there's a possibilty. The situation hasn't gotten any better, and I've talked to Quill a bunch of times about the prob. He said he would call the landlord on my behalf to let him know at least three times. i've written "i have no heat in my room!' on my rent checks for months. True to form, Landlord has, in turn, sent various large male family members over to our place a few times last month, both times to fix our leaky bathroom faucet we reported to him in September that had stopped leaking on its own in November. Both times, the other non-veteran roomie (will call him Nicktor -- uh, Nick) and i mentioned the heat problem. They said they would work on it.

So, before i left for Chicago last month, a cold snap hit. It was freeeezing outside. Freezing in my room too. When i left, the Relatives said they would be working on it.

So, they didn't. It is still cold. NY weather has been warm so far since I've returned, though, so I haven't had to deal with too much crap. But night times, they are cold. And winter, she is definitely coming. And i am worried.

Ok, so last night, i came back from the hospital to find my two roomies in the living room. i was exhausted, and, after a short exchange on the way to my room, i mentioned to them to please let Landlord or Relatives know that the heat still isn't working in my room. Turns out, after a fair amount of talking around the subject, that Quill mentioned something that Nick had learned from the family and mentioned to me days before: that the way the heat is set up in the place has it coming in through the kitchen, going into the bathroom, into his room, the living room, Nictor's room, then mine, leaving not much after all of this travel. When i had heard about this earlier from Nick, i said that, if this was so, then the room must have always had heat problems. That, i thought, couldn't be the case cause Quill has seemed just as shocked as me about my heat problems.

Well, turns out, after pointedly asking Quill about this a few times during this conversation, that this actually has always been the case. My room has never gotten heat. "So it's not going to be able to be fixed?" i asked. "Probably not," he said. ARRRRRRRRGGGGHHHHH!! Why Quill didn't mention this when i was considering the room, i could probably guess. Why this wasn't mentioned while i was struggling to get someone in to fix it, i dunno. Quill started going into a "blah blah blah" thang, and i told him that i couldn't talk about it any more because i was gonna have a conniption, and went into my (cold) room. And cried.

So, i have no heat for the winter. Don't know about you, but i handle cold weather very poorly. Very poorly. Like, extremely not well. i become lizard like. i go into heavy survival mode: i freeze up, conserve energy by not moving much, and am unable to think myself out of the situation. It's really pretty pathetic. And not healthy for me at all. i hate the winter. i hate the cold. And here i am, facing a winter with no heat. Suck.

i am not happy with Quill right now. Shopping for a space heater has just moved up on my increasingly long to-do list. Lucky thing i decided yesterday to make my day to start getting it together, though. Giving myself the weekend, and, come Monday, decisions, they will be made! Oh, new year. You and your silly sound and fury.