We, the North
The wind is howling and behaving like this is the arctic. Frames rattle, snow and hail are hitting the windows, making me wonder if the glass will hold. Visibility turns to zero and the whole world seems to be a grey squall. Another wind gust, more window rattling. Trying to fix them, I realize they are frozen shut. Well - better than last year, when one outside window froze while half open and stayed so for three months until the temperature finally climbed above zero. But then, stupid me, I did not even think about using my blow-dryer as a heat-source to defrost the leaking metal window frames. Or maybe not so stupid after all, it might just have cracked the glass.
I forgot again to improve the insulation values of my windows by adding a layer of plastic foil in late summer. Now it is too late, the tape does not stick anymore. All I can do is to roll up blankets and put them on the window sill, trying to ban the wind. By closing the extra thick curtains, I shut out most of the light as well. Meanwhile, the snow finds its way through the cracks between my balcony door and frame. It is actually not a real balcony door -when it is grown up it might become one or acquire a sibling in the shape of a storm door. In the meantime, I am stuck with the teenage version. It lets the cold in, floods my apartment when the rain hits at a certain angle and today it allows the snow to enter. And then even that is not satisfying anymore for the evil conspiracy of rebellious door and winter weather. The door decides to fly open and now I have my own private live snowstorm partying in my living room. Jumping up I grab the ice-cold door handle and try to close the door. After a lengthy argument, I win. The foam-stripping that is supposed to hold back the bitter-cold screeching wind unfortunately comes off in the fight. I try to staple it back on. With every small victory the wind finds another crack it can blow through. Mopping up the melted snow I am tempted to winterize the door by screwing it shut with boards and blankets. Only the already frozen windows are holding me back. Maybe I am really a terribly spoiled princess for wanting to air out my rooms from time to time. In winter! How irrational of me then to complain about the air blowing through the natural occurring cracks.
I should be on my knees thanking the building gods for their smart solutions. Being a bit whimsical about winter-darkness is no reason not to appreciate the possibilities I am offered: 18 degrees Celsius in a romantic twilight setting or a moderate 12 degrees with bright daylight streaming through the windows (no visibility though, the window is either steamed or frosted) This is freedom - having options to choose from. My heater runs with the soothing sound of a movie generator. Last year it sounded like an airplane. It took only a bit more than a year of complaining and the noise level was brought down to an almost acceptable level, as long as one does not want to sleep with it on. My bedroom heater is totally quiet - because it does not work. Now I even have an on-and off switch. Last year, I had to open the radiator and unscrew a connection to turn it off. It’s so much better now. I feel I arrived in the 20 century (oh shit, we are already in the 21st). Rumors have it that there are super modern systems, where you can regulate the temperature by remote control. Crazy things they come up with. I throw a wet towel on my radiator when it gets too warm, or hang my wet laundry up, which humidifies the air as well, so that my Swiss cheese plant stops being mad at me (she came from the jungle and still regrets having taken refuge here). When it is still too hot, I turn my heater off. Just like that. 10 min later I can turn it back on, the room cooling down in no-time through the generous application of cracks and holes in the walls. Keeps me fit as well. My friend meanwhile, even though her apartment is more expensive, needs to open a door to prevent overheating. Her heater turns on like magic in late October and blows too much hot air until April, working smoothly away. But then, she is younger and does not suffer from hot flashes of her own.
They told me I am on a priority list for a new door. Thank God for that. So far I have only waited for two and a half years.
No, I do not live in Arkhangelsk or Katmandu. I live in Toronto, Canada. We the North, who build and maintain apartment buildings for a dreamed of, longed for, moderate climate they might enjoy in Portugal and Italy, where so many construction workers come from.
Great that we signed the Paris climate accord to reduce CO2 emissions. Maybe we should just write, sign and enforce building codes that match our weather.
How much energy could we save by using newer technologies and building materials, by insulating properly. How many jobs could be created. It would also save us from the ridiculous amount of money we waste every year on air conditioning in summer. In some hot countries, like Portugal or Italy, they keep cool with white window shutters and curtains.
Maybe I should just buy a condo and be responsible for my own living quarters. After all, they built hundreds of glass condo towers. Sure, they are overpriced and shoddily put up, but very bright. Some of the mudslingers claim that the only advantage of having glass all around is (for the developer), that it makes the rooms look bigger. Once you move in, you probably realize, that it’s not that big after all, that there is no wall to hang your picture, all kinds of strangers are able to stare through your windows and cold and heat come through unhindered. That is until you go out and spend a fortune on curtains. 20 years later, when you are close to having paid off your mortgage, the window caulking finally gives in and you will be paying another couple of hundred thousand for repairs. Sounds so smart and appealing. Maybe in order to escape this depressing picture of the future you could travel to some exotic place and watch them signing another anti climate change treaty.
Amazingly enough the cold weather period did not just end in January. I had to interrupt my philosophical contemplation of current Canadian affairs and get practical. So I ended up insulating my flimsy balcony door by myself. After consulting with my family I used my German engineering gene and attached some pink insulation sheet to the outside of the door and the frame. The building inspector was quite impressed. (Hopefully not so much, that he recommends that tenants are capable of fixing everything in the building by them-self.) Yes, a building inspector. I called the city. It was part of the action plan, through our new formed building committee. I seemed to have been the only one having done this unfortunately. I am the first to admit that I could take my fate in my own hands only because I took some time off from work. It required some patience and tenacity. Some explanations I am getting now from the nice inspector make me want to klick my eyes rapidly in astonishment. Surely a free market society we are...any kind of glass can pretend to be a window, never mind seals, caulking and other nuisances. As long as no black mold shows up on the surface, everybody (but the person living in the apartment) is happy.
The photos I took off, admittedly pretty, ice-flowers and whole ice-sculptures forming themselves between my windowpanes do not bother the inspector very much. I am just waiting for his exclamation, "How beautiful". "Well" I say, "the problem starts when the ice melts, the water flows right in the wall, it has nowhere to go. "Oh", he says. Maybe I should use my apartment as pop-up art gallery and charge an entrance fee.
"You know what" I say, "as long as I get a new, proper balcony door, I will be fine."
I should stop complaining altogether. Other people in the building have broken windows or no heat at all. Some then buy electrical heaters and leave them running all day. Or even better, the building management supplies them and charges rent for them. That seemed to be quite dangerous as well. So are the wires that hang from some hallway ceilings and the little fire-alarms that seem to get off, as soon as you burn a piece of toast. The predictable outcome is that nobody reacts when the extreme loud building alarms goes off either. Especially in winter, at 5 in the morning. Hopefully we never have a real fire.
I just got a phone call from the building management that they want to put in the new balcony door right now. This city inspector got the magic touch, not even a week ago he contacted them. It feels like Christmas and Easter together. I am so excited. But no, I do not want to watch them work and hurt their feelings unnecessarily with vile criticism. I prefer not to be there while they work. I experienced life a year ago the replacement of one rotten, flimsy hollow core door with the same model minus rotten. It was winter, minus 20 degrees. First they took the old door out. Then they left and I stared concerned at this gaping hole. I was sitting there in my winter coat with winter-boots under a blanket, when they returned proudly with the next wannabe door. The leading macho sliced through my, "But this is not a proper balcony door either" with the irrefutable argument, that if I do not want the hole, then something has to be put there and this is what they had. I then watched them trying to saw the new door into shape. My door frame is rather crooked, it was not an easy task and carpenters they are not. I suffered with them and tried to tear my eyes away from the rusty old handsaw getting dangerously close to fingers. The mess it would have made. But we all survived physical uninjured, only some mental scars left. I was actually so relieved that I did not even protest the wide cracks between doorframe and door. I fixed it as good as I could and then hung a blanket in front of the door. They did as best as they could I am sure. But I do not want to watch this slapstick comic: "Canada's worst handyman" again. And yes, it seems to be about right that you need a licensed electrician to fix a light-switch in your condo, but my whole building operates on a different, communal level so to say. This the building inspector knows as well. I felt obligated to say, that by no means do I want our handymen fired. They live in my building. (Rumors have it, that they got all the fancy stainless steel appliances and proper doors and windows and heaters the rest of us do not get. They might have even hired specialist to install them.)
Maybe I should have called 911 the time I came home and my whole apartment smelled like after a chemical attack. Paint thinner or varnish- it was horrible. My head started to hurt immediately and my eyes to water. As a modern practical woman, I opened all the windows and the balcony door, identified the source as my bathroom vent and taped it shut. Then I decided to go for dinner. One might call this an attempt to escape from an unpleasant reality and would be utterly right. But decisions are often better delayed until after dinner. And at least I had the hope that the smell would be gone. Well it was not. Somehow I did not feel like renting a hotel room, or bugging my friends. Instead I went to inquire to the building security guy. He totally deflated my thought of revolt by telling me his own horror experiences with the building and his smells. My complaint to the building management resulted in the explanation that they had no idea how this smell could travel through half the building and they had to put new floors down in some apartments. Such free spirits, not bothered by any work and living safety regulations. I am sure that most their paint and varnish is on the list of long extinguished building supplies, hoarded at the time when one could still legally douse people with DDT.
I experienced instead a beautiful night under open skies, watching the stars through my open balcony door and fighting my special kind of vertigo that makes me fear that I would jump over the balcony railing if my door stayed open. Jet I did not, and so overcame with the help of my building another psychological barrier.
And now I got a new door. It even closes, most of the time. It looks straight. The frame it is attached to is rotten, but who would bother with minor inconveniences like that.
I got an exterior door. Praise the city inspector.
Some weeks later they are coming to eradicate cockroaches. When I am allowed to return to my place to move all the furniture back against the walls and put thinks back into the cupboards some of the Cockroaches sneak out of my shelves. I kill them. I believe that my rights to live overrule theirs. No, no human or animal rights for Roaches. I hope that they did not actually enjoy the spraying. You never know with them. Hopefully somewhere down the hallway lives somebody who likes to leave his food out and his kitchen dirty, so that the cockroaches move in with him.
Or I start round ten in the fight for humane living conditions. So far I won 2 out of 9.