The light in my kitchen died. Typically, it wouldn’t be a big deal of any order … I can replace light bulbs. But this is hardly typical; the fixture in the kitchen uses doughnut-shaped fluorescent tubes that attach by arcane plugs to what looks like a battery. Worse yet, the rings are held in place by three metal clamps.

So, I realized this was outside my purview. It wasn’t unscrew old and screw in new. I went to my superintendent, since he is — theoretically — the person responsible for handling repairs and maintenance in the building. I asked him about replacing the light and he told me he couldn’t.

He elaborated that the landlord / property manager / management company refuses to buy replacement bulbs for the fixtures in the apartment kitchens. He expounded that there is no fund with which to purchase these bulbs on his own and any request to buy them for tenants is denied. He said, too, that if a hallway fixture goes out, which uses a small fluorescent ring, he has to harass the property manager to buy a replacement.

In sum, he told me I was on my own. One of his helpers said that if I bought the bulbs, he’d be happy to replace them for me. It seems they are not averse to the work, rather they are forbidden by the building’s management to purchase replacement bulbs for the kitchen light fixture.

Realizing that I would need the bulbs in order to replace them — it makes no sense to wander into a store looking for a bulb without knowing the exact specifications — I attempted to remove them from the fixture. The aforesaid metal clamps that hold the bulbs in place provide a lot of resistance. As I pulled one clamp back and tried to let the bulb come loose, the clamp sprang back into place and broke the bulb in the process.

The pop from the bulb made my heart sink. The carcinogenic insides of the bulb were now floating through the air of my kitchen, in my eyes, nose and lungs.

This process could have been so much simpler if the landlord would enable the superintendent to make the repairs a superintendent is — again, theoretically, it seems — on hand to make. Instead, I have a broken fluorescent bulb, no light in my kitchen and the new headache of worrying over my health.

Tags: boo-hoo, cancer, death, Flatbush, underdog

This entry was posted on Friday, September 11th, 2009 at 9:47 PM and is filed under incredulity, miscellanous bk, piss poor. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.