The Week the A/C Died

The maintenance guys began working on the unit Monday, shortly after I phoned down to say the A/C was operating but not putting out cold air … that inside my apartment was fluctuating between 90 and 94 degrees.

After more back and forth Tuesday and this morning, while I tried to make do with a tower fan, the guys finally admitted defeat and called in an expert.

Expert was young, way cute, but married. Noticing the Michonne needlepoint hanging on the wall, opened up some good Walking Dead conversations as he checked this, checked that, saw the A/C was registering an output of 55 at the back end, but wasn’t putting that nice cold air out on the front end.

Bottom line is the entire A/C unit has to be replaced, only a four-hour operation, but the thing is … will it be replaced in days, weeks or months.

It will be replaced, I’ve no doubt about that. It wouldn’t look good for management to have a hot senior apartment death on their hands.

Timing depends on how quickly management gets authorization from Corporate, and then there’s the issue of the replacement coming from a warehouse in Texas, and Texas has more serious problems right now than trying to figure out how to ship A/C parts to California ... that is if the warehouse itself isn't underwater, thereby rendered inoperable.

I went online looking at portable A/C’s but then got the bright idea to ask management if they had one.

They did.

It’s not a cure to the current situation, not even a bandage, but better than nothing as temperatures continue to rise.