Day 289 of self-isolation. Day 150 without gas/heat.
My new blanket that came in the mail today; it’s made of a nice, knit jersey and colored heather gray. The blanket is queen-sized and way too large for my bed, so I’m going to mainly use it while sitting/lying on my couch. It’s a couch blanket.
Yeah, with winter here and without a proper heating system, it’s fairly cold in my apartment: it’s not unbearable, but it’s not the most comfortable. According to the flea-market-bought weather station I have on my wall — the temperature inside fluctuates between 60 to 65 degrees, depending on the conditions outside. I had no idea when the combination of my landlord, the contractors/plumbers he hired, my gas company National Grid, and New York City will allow my building to have cooking gas and heat, so I recently bought this oversized blanket just to wrap myself in and keep warm.
However, I do have some interesting updates that happened this week.
This past weekend, a contractor came into my unit and put up some sheetrock over the exposed gas pipes — gas pipes they installed sometime in mid-November but have yet to do anything else with. I personally liked the exposed pipes on my brick wall, just because it gave an industrial look to my apartment. Unfortunately, after talking to the contractor, he said it’s New York law to not have any exposed gas lines. With this patchwork of sheetrock, however, it looks pretty hideous and Frankenstein-ish. I don’t know what my landlord plans to do cosmetically, but I was thinking of getting a long plank of wood to put over the sheetrock and build some shelves. As it stands now and despite the crooked panels and exposed screws, at least the holes in my ceiling and on my floor are covered. This winter has been particularly windy, and I felt a draft coming in from the basement below me. Or maybe it was ghosts, who knows.
Just today, we apparently had our final city inspection. My landlord asked if I was going to be home at 11:30 am, which I was. I figured the inspector would enter my apartment, see that everything was okay, and give the order to turn on the gas. I waited for two hours, and fed up I texted my landlord saying I haven’t heard anything or seen anyone. He immediately replied back saying that they did come and left without knocking on my door. Cool, I waited two hours not leaving my apartment, especially when I had to walk Dusty and meet up with two of my friends. Thanks, people, for pretty much wasting my day.
I asked what the gas situation was, and for another few hours, I get no response. I figured I might as well use this time to at least take care of my dog, get a coffee, and shower, and by the time I got dressed and checked my phone, my landlord left a somewhat lengthy voicemail.
He said we passed the inspection, and it’s up to the NYC Inspector to enter the data into the city’s system, and that’s when National Grid will come and turn on my gas. He said hopefully it’ll take two days for that to happen.
Hurray?
The end to this insufferable nightmare is in sight, but holy fuck, it’s still such a goddamn bureaucratic mess to keep on waiting. Just give the okay now and let me use my oven to bake. Just give the go ahead so I can stop putting a jacket on Dusty each night. Just turn on my gas so this new blanket will be another frivolous online purchase.
Fingers crossed.