If it’s not one thing….

Honestly, sometimes it seems we cannot catch a break. I was so pleased at the quick response of our maintenance person, back in July, to come check out our whistling water heater, but it seems they’ve done us a disservice. For some reason, the August gas bill has two readings on it… about 45 days worth of service, July and part of August. Our usual 30 days of service bill runs us … oh, say, $20-$30. This time, for 45 days, we get $381. Fantastic that this turned out to be one of those longer periods between gas bills, we really needed an extra 15 days of not knowing what was happening… it certainly added up.

Of course, I call the gas company. They say the meter is working properly, and was just checked thoroughly at the last reading (the 2nd reading listed on the bill). Some remote test says there is no leak in the gas line — some pressure test or something, she couldn’t really tell me. We don’t smell gas in the house, so….. where does that leave us? They ask me, well, if all you have is a gas water heater, have you checked your water usage? Was it also high? Well, no, in fact it was very low this month. I tell them we’ve lived here going on three years and I think we might notice if we were using 10 times the hot water as normal. Even so, the water bill says that isn’t the case.

Thus, what’s left… faulty water heater — shouldn’t we smell gas?!? Considering how often I burn candles in here right down the hall from the water heater, I’d say we might have noticed a leak via some sort of explosion. Otherwise, there is the possibility of a gas leak outside around the meters — which they say is slim.

Thus I have done as instructed by the gas company, and called the apartment managers, who are supposed to send maintenance right out… that was of course nearly four hours ago. I did say “GAS LEAK” to the person. You’d think they might rush that. I also pointed out that I believe this little incident to be a direct result of our last maintenance visit tweaking the water heater and STRESSED the $381 gas bill. Apparently, unless we actually SMELL gas, the gas company won’t send a technician to a rental location without the management checking it out first.

I already heard from the gas company that we are going to have to pay this bill and probably deal with being compensated by the apartments, if they are found to be the cause of it. Can’t think of what else it could be, though, they have only a week ago changed apartment management, yet again.

Joy.