The Curse

Year 1 – B-6, 402

Gas doesn’t work, doesn’t heat the water until after much tinkering, then mysteriously disappears faster than at other apartments despite more or less comparable use.

Strange occurrences with electrical outlets and malfunctioning television occur.

Remote control for t.v. will lower the volume, but not raise it.

DVD player is bought. Refuses to work. Then neighbour’s DVD player is borrowed. It will play a DVD, but the image shows up in static greys.

Toaster oven bought. Toaster oven plugged in and turned on. Toaster oven produces smoke and electrical burn smell. Toaster oven sent back to store via my lap on the bus full of people.

Clothes drying pulleys break. Maintenance repairs it.

Doors to balcony don’t lock. Door off kitchen found wide open when returning from month-long winter break.

Year 2 – new place, 1 bedroom, above network center

All furniture shoved into one room. No desk. No A/C. No curtains. No bug screens. No stove. No fridge. Hardly any storage space.

Night one – shower floods bathroom, then seeps through kitchen drain and into living room on floor where cardboard boxes with all decorations lie. Boxes piled up on the couch.

Night three – return from Eastgate dinner, door refuses to open. Called someone to call someone to come help me break in. Wait an hour or so. Repair man shows up, tries credit card trick, fails, thankfully. Shoulders his way into door, wish I could have kicked it in. Repair man goes home to get new door handle apparatus. Repair man returns and replaces door handle.

I stay in apartment at random times on almost every day to meet people to install things that should have been put in place during “renovation” over the summer. Wait a day, get fridge. Wait another day, get curtains. Wait another day, t.v. guys whom I didn’t request show up and do who knows what. Wait another sweaty day while AC guys play with wires and fix nothing.

It’s hot in Shantou. I’m not complaining. It’s just a fact. Bought my own fan, and now nights aren’t so terrible.

So ready for this curse to end!