We've had a lot of experiences lately that seem like we're supposed to be learning appreciation. We had the 4 months of living far away from Daddy to make us appreciate our time together. We had 7 months in a smallish apartment to make us appreciate having a backyard and playroom. We had a few incredibly hot days in the summer without air conditioning to make us appreciate air conditioning and the not as hot days that don't need air conditioning.
And here's our latest - we had about 68 hours (nearly 3 full days) without our gas on to make us appreciate having a furnace and hot running water!
I sound like a flake that forgot to pay the bills so the gas was turned off. And it doesn't sound much better when I say that we never got a bill - it was turned off because we never put it in our name. But here's the thing - a few days after we bought the house the water was turned off (on one of the days I came to paint). I found the water company on Google and called them, and they came to turn it on the next day. I asked what other companies I needed to call, and the nice lady gave me the name and number of the electric company and the garbage company. That was it. I never got any information about a gas company, and assumed there wasn't one. Yes, we have a gas fireplace, but we assumed that it must be covered in one of our other bills or something (in Eagle Mountain all our bills were in one, so it wasn't a foolish assumption).
So Tuesday, 10/27, over a month after we bought the house, we came home from Parent Teacher conferences to find a thing over our doorknob saying they had turned off the gas. I immediately called to have it turned back on! After several minutes of giving her way too much information (really, why do they need our driver's licences and social security numbers?!?), she told me that they could come back on Friday to turn it back on. I asked what we had that used gas, and she told me fireplace, furnace, and hot water heat.
I started to panic! Three days without a furnace or hot water in October when it gets dang near freezing at night? What am I supposed to do?!? I started trying to figure out if I needed to head back up to Kent, if we should stay in a hotel, what we would do with Molly if we did stay in a hotel, etc. And the lady on the phone is still trying to talk to me about making sure someone would be at the house on Friday. At this point I'm crying and saying things like "I don't know, we might have to be in a hotel, it's going to be cold!" Really, nobody can come out until Friday? Nope. It's not as easy as turning it off, they have to come in and inspect the water heater & furnace, so it requires a longer appointment. She also made it sound like they'd done us this huge favor by leaving it on for over a month from the 9/16 date the previous owners had it canceled on. Except that we weren't living here yet, and had the apartment until 10/1 if we'd needed it. And it wasn't so cold then. So nope, not a favor. It sure would've been nice if they'd bothered to send us some a notice that they were going to turn it off or something...
The heat issue was resolved remarkably easily. I called the Relief Society president, and she was over a short while later with about 5 space heaters and a sleeping bag. We didn't end up needing the sleeping bag because the space heaters were so effective. The first night we had 1 in each of the 3 bedrooms. And I was up at 4 am to turn ours off because we were sweltering! The second night we had 1 in both kids' rooms, and had 1 in our room until bedtime but didn't need it on after that. Last night we discovered that we really only needed 1 on, set out in the hallway, to heat all 3 bedrooms!
The hot water was not so easy to solve. Dan took a shower Tuesday night with the last of the hot water, and then we went old fashioned. I heated water on the stove (Thank goodness we don't have a gas stove!) to give the kids a bath in a big bucket (smaller than the tub so it wouldn't take so much water), which they thought was really exciting! I heated water to rinse dishes to put in the dishwasher, then used paper plates & bowls once the dishwasher was full. I just didn't do laundry (so I have LOTS to do now!). And I ended up taking a bath in the bucket Wednesday and Thursday as well. I didn't fit as well, and I certainly didn't think it was exciting, but I felt reasonably clean afterward.
I've spent quite a bit of time feeling frustrated by this. It was stupid that we didn't look harder into if we needed to sign up for gas. But they shouldn't have just shut it off without letting us know! We didn't know who they were, or that they even existed. They knew that gas had been used in the last month since the previous owners left, so somebody must be living here. And they came to our house (during one of the rare times I wasn't here...I wonder if it would've been different if I had been home...) and saw a poopy diaper sitting by the front door. So they knowingly turned off the heat & hot water at a house where a young child lives when it gets really cold! How is that right? The most frustrating thing is that there is nothing we can do about it! If we don't want to keep using space heaters & heating our water on the stove (and believe me, I do not) we need to use their company. They have no reason to provide good customer service because we will be their customers regardless! Oh, and the long visit to turn it back on that we had to wait three days for? It took about 10 minutes. Seriously, he came sometime after I sent a text at 10:54, and was gone before 11:07. Really, nobody could spare TEN MINUTES sometime Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday so that my family could have warm water? Ridiculous!
Well, I let the water heat up for 2 hours to make sure I wouldn't run out, then took a wonderfully warm shower. It feels SO GOOD to be so clean! It's been about a decade since I last went camping, and I think that was the last time a shower felt so refreshing. Aaaaaah. Now to wash about 5 loads of laundry. :-P
Awww, my big kid. I sure love that guy!
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