Around the House

Our refrigerator had been acting up for about 2 months. The temperature in both the refrigerator and freezer warmed quite a bit at times. The frequency was increasing. On his second visit, the technician finally said it needed a part. 

Our agent began the task of getting the owner to agree to ordering the part. We knew from the technician it would take 6-8 weeks to order the part. Because the refrigerator was pretty old, we asked if it made sense to buy a new one. We even offered to front the money and buy it and get it delivered. 

It got to the point we were trying not to even open the refrigerator or freezer. Finally the owner agreed to just buy a new fridge for the apartment. When the delivery came, there was only one man and he didn't have a dolly. The old fridge was "too heavy" so delivery had to be re-scheduled for a few days later. On the second try there was a larger crew and a dolly.

For a brief moment I didn't think the old refrigerator was going to be able to be removed. It required careful movement in the narrow space around the island. It's a small kitchen. I was relieved when they did manage the removal and then installed the new fridge. 

Unlike the old fridge, this one doesn't have an icemaker so we are back to manually filling ice cube trays. We had to do that in Indonesia since no tap water was potable. If you remember, we only drank bottled water. Happily, we kept the ice cube trays! This fridge, however, does have a tank you manually fill with water (only 2.5 liters) and you can dispense it through the door but it's such a small volume we'd be filling it every day or so. We just decided not to use it.

Old fridge on the way out!

New fridge on the way in!

The new refrigerator has an acceptable amount of space but it is a base model. There weren't enough drawers in the fridge and no baskets in the freezer, just flat glass shelves. The shelves aren't very adjustable either. After having everything sliding around on the glass freezer shelves and often out onto the floor, we bought freezer baskets. We also purchased a couple of drawers that attach under glass fridge shelves Problems solved.

I don't know if I mentioned this before, but one wall in our living room ( the one against the other apartment on this floor) is solid cement-- really solid cement. We had this situation in Indonesia but I found some hooks made for this purpose with 4 little nails that you could drive into the cement wall. I tried those here and the nails just broke! I admit that we have not tried purchasing a masonry bit and installing anchors. The agent discouraged us from even putting nails in the wall. We have tried the velcro type Command strips and regular Command hooks and we have had some success. We hung 3 items on this wall. Two of the items hung via this system have fallen off the wall. A photo collage with glass in the frame fell. The hook came off the wall. In the second case I don't think we can blame the Command system since the velcro strips were all attached to the wall and to the item that fell. Somehow the velcro itself let go.

This clock was very near the large balcony doors. We had a couple of extremely windy days when we had the doors open and I think it's likely that the wind was periodically moving the clock and pulling on the velcro attachments and that is the reason the clock fell. As I said, the Command velcro strips were still attached. Anyway, no more clock! We bought another clock (the new one has a plastic lens and not a glass one) but this time I will periodically press on the clock to re-attach the velcro. Lesson learned? Command velcro hanging strips can't handle high winds.

We had a gastropod visitor! A pretty good-sized snail (perhaps 2 inches in diameter) was hanging from the ceiling above our larger balcony for a couple of days. We now wonder if the folks on the 7th floor have a water feature with snails to keep down the algae and this guy escaped!