Window Repairs

The window repair man finally came back yesterday. Sheesh, what an odyssey that's been.

I think I mentioned a couple of months ago that we called the local government council -- which maintains our building -- to fix some broken hinges on our windows. The repairman came, assessed the situation, and told us we had extremely unusual hinges that they would need to special order.

(My mom is fond of saying that whenever you call a repair person -- or a call center, or any similar service provider -- it's always as if you are the very first person in recorded history to have your type of problem. This is a good example. Apparently no one else has hinges like ours.)

The repairman went away and came back a few weeks later with three replacement hinges. By this time, through sheer bad luck, we'd had two more break. (Attention landlords: we are not abusing the windows. I swear.) I'd hoped the repairman would have some extras with him, but no. He said I needed to file a new work order for the additional two hinges. But he added that he would watch for my work order, and would order parts so he could install them promptly when they arrived.

I filed the new work order. But this time the council, for some reason, sent a different repairman. He insisted that the council's regular maintenance staff (in other words, he himself) could not fix my windows.

"But," I protested, "another council worker fixed three of them just a few days ago."

Well, he shouldn't have done that, the new guy said. He called a subcontractor -- a special window-repair company. Several days later, they came and did their own assessment.

Unsurprisingly, they agreed with the first guy -- our hinges are very weird. They needed to be special ordered.

So finally, yesterday, the sub-contractors came back with new hinges. They fixed our two remaining windows. As far as I can tell, all our windows now work, though I'm increasingly afraid to open any of them.

(Photos: Oddities from around Knightsbridge, yesterday. Yes, that's a Christmas ornament in the gutter.)