The Ceiling Project
Inevitably, in every apartment, little things start going wrong as soon as you move in. In Chicago, we had mice. They popped out of the burners on the stove and peered out at us in curiosity. When we started smelling a little extra gas smell after the stove was turned off, we called the management company to complain about mice messing with the gas pipes on the stove. Some dude showed up, looked around at our stove, and then told us there was no problem. He left us a copy of the incident report from the management company. RESIDENT BELIEVES MICE ARE CHEWING ON WIRES INSIDE STOVE, it said. Thanks for all your help. And for making us feel like we are completely crazy.
My apartment now, in comparison to all of the others in which I’ve lived, has had very few problems. Until the heat came on, that is.
In the management company’s attempt to turn this apartment into something hipster and cute, they hollowed out the walls and left some exposed brick and piping. It’s all very trendy. However, the heaters sound like people are throwing hammers down the pipes every three hours. Luckily for me, my college dorm overlooked two construction sites and my college apartment was right next to the loading dock for a major shopping center. I can sleep through anything. I slept through the West Indian Day Parade. My one roommate, however, is a light sleeper. She is also a force to be reckoned with, so she called our management company every day until they sent out a plumber. And then she called them every day after that when it still wasn’t 100% fixed.
While all this was going on, though, other small things were happening. In early December, I was sitting at my desk and I heard the sound of falling rocks. I looked up, and noticed that there was plaster falling from around the pipe in my bedroom. I freaked out. I took pictures and sent them to my stepdad, a contractor. I sent a frantic email to my boyfriend. MY CEILING IS FALLING DOWN! I included one of the photos. They both laughed at me. “That’s just plaster falling; you can just have them fix it,” my stepdad said. “Yeah, that’s just like, a regular New York apartment hole in the ceiling,” my boyfriend said. “Don’t worry.”
Ok, falling plaster, protruding nails, no big deal. Got it. Once we get the noisy pipes straightened out, we can get my ceiling fixed.
A small leak appeared in the living room ceiling just a few days after the heat came on. The super couldn’t find where it was coming from, so he said to just let him know if it got bigger. It did.
However, as it looked exactly like a pipe, we started formulating crazy conspiracy theories as to what was going on. We were like old people thinking all of our illnesses were connected. “It’s the pipes getting so hot that they’re sweating onto the ceiling!” we speculated. “It’s the plaster being burned as the pipes rattle!” My roommate’s dad, however, confirmed that it was just your everyday leak. So when the plumber came by for yet another clanging-radiator visit, we pointed it out with a flourish. “Maybe this is how the air is getting into the pipes! This leak is the key, we know it!”
It wasn’t. The super finally found the leak upstairs, and he fixed it. The plumber decided that the problem was stemming from covered radiator valves, so he replaced them. That partially helped with the noise.
After a few more visits from the plumber and multiple attempts at bleeding the lines, it’s much quieter in here now, though not completely silent. I think, though, we can safely say my persistent roommate can claim a small victory. Once the super gets back from his annual vacation, he said, he’ll put stain-killer on our ceiling to camouflage the leak. As for my ceiling, I guess I’ll just have to remind them.
“It’s really not that bad,” my boyfriend said this morning. “I mean, really, everyone in New York has something like that in their apartment.” As I said, it’s all very trendy.
Inter.gazing 