(no subject)

[owlectomy]

Got back from a really excellent night out to find a notice on the door.

My apartment is severely late in paying for heating and hot water, and the gas company is threatening to cut us off.

...Not that I see much heating or hot water, usually, but some is better than none when it's December.

Facepalm.

Comments

[trouble]

Oh wow. Everywhere I've lived, it's illegal to cut off the heat in winter. Are you okay?

[owlectomy]

I've still got a month before the date they're threatening to cut us off, and I've got a place to stay if it comes to that. But, it is good to hear that it's illegal. I got home at 1 in the morning and was not in much condition to think things through clearly.

[littlebutfierce]

^^;;;;;;;; But but it's illegal to not heat a building above a certain temperature during the winter in NYC! Though I suspect the city bureaucracy is probably fairly slow in enforcement. :/ :/ :/

[owlectomy]

I don't think legality has ever stopped this apartment management company from doing what they wanted to do! (Actually, they were just fined some huge sum for violating labor laws, which may be why they didn't pay their gas bill.)

Hopefully it will be cleared up before the heat gets cut off, it just wasn't much of a thing to come home to when it was 1 a.m. and I was thinking, "Hmm, gotta put the kettle on when I get home so I can have a warm bed to get into."

[meaghansketch]

I had this happen with a building I lived in (only it was the electricity in the common areas and elevator they hadn't paid for and that the utility was threatening to cut off) and nothing came of it. They (the utility) like to put notices on the residents' doors so that the residents put pressure on the building to pay.

Though of course if they do cut it off, please stay with us for as long as it takes to get it working again.

Ugh.

[owlectomy]

Yeah, this also happened in my apartment with Diana, and I got all panicky thinking that it was the electricity for the whole building that was going to be turned off, but it was just going to be the common areas. Heat and hot water for the whole building, I'm a little bit concerned about. :/

Thing is, I don't really trust the management company to pay its bills or to make sure that people have heat and hot water...

[pinesandmaples]

I hope by "my apartment" you mean "the people who own the damn building and are threatening to cock things up for everyone" instead of "erstwhile librarian who writes books and eats nummy Japanese food."

[owlectomy]

Yep.

When I was living in Montreal the gas company had a brief outage that coincided with my being kind of irresponsible in getting my bills paid. Only a coincidence, but since then I have been SUPER RESPONSIBLE about paying my heating bill. But in this apartment, the landlord is responsible for the bills. Or irresponsible.

[laughingrat]

Aw, shit. D: