For about the last week, Simplex has been plagued by electricity problems. Which is why I’d been off the ‘Net for a while and why aperiodic.net was unreachable for that period of time. In the interests of archival, here’s the timeline:
§ Wednesday, Jan 28th, night
I’m playing Simpsons Hit and Run with Leah when the power flickers. The UPS with a bad battery just barely manages to keep the computer and PlayStation 2 alive. I learn the hard way that you can’t save in the middle of a mission, right before the power cuts out entirely and the game goes bye-bye. We figure it’s an area problem and that BGE will fix it. The power continues to flicker on and off throughout the night, so we just shut off all of the computers.
§ Thursday night
The problems persist. We realize that everyone else seem to be doing okay, so I resolve to call the leasing office in the morning.
§ Friday morning
The power is mostly on, but keeps flickering off and back on. I call the leasing office after I get to work. They haven’t heard from anyone else, so it’s probably just us. They promise to send out someone to look at it.
§ Friday late afternoon
A maintenance person goes to the townhouse. Ray is home at the time. Naturally, the power works while the maintenance person is there. He’s got other calls, so promises to return on Saturday and look more closely.
§ Friday evening
I get home and note that the electricity is still having problems. Ray’s already left, so I don’t know about the visit from the maintenance person. I call the emergency service number and leave a message. When I don’t get a response, I call BGE. They have an automated menu system that works me though the symptoms that I’m seeing. It ultimately tells me that this sort of thing is usually internal to the house and not something they can fix. It offers to set up a service call, but warns that if the technician determines that the problem is not something BGE can fix they will charge me $80. I call the leasing office again.
§ Friday, about 11:00pm
The power flickers off and back on again for what will be the last time that night.
§ Friday night
The maintenance person calls back. I talk with him for a while, giving him some more background on what sorts of things are happening. He says he has a pretty good idea of what’s going wrong and will be in first thing on Saturday morning.
§ Saturday late morning
The maintenance person arrives, looks at the circuit breaker panel, and says he has to leave again. I’m left with the impression that he’ll return; Ray is left with the impression that he won’t. Regardless, he doesn’t. Power works all day.
§ Sunday night
Power problems manifest again.
§ Monday morning
I call the leasing office to report the continuance of the problems. They say someone will be out to look at it.
§ Monday evening
I return home to find that someone came, more or less just looked at things, and left. Ray was home at the time and was told that they’d get someone more knowledgeable out there.
§ Tuesday, 3:30pm
I call the leasing office to see how things are going. I’m told that an electrician has been called, but has not yet responded.
§ Tuesday evening
I get home to find that no one has yet been in.
§ Wednesday, early afternoon
I call the leasing office again to see if they’ve actually done anything. I’m told that the electrician is currently in the townhouse.
§ Wednesday, late afternoon
The leasing agent calls back to say that the electrician had been in. Naturally, the electricity did not misbehave while he was there. Going on what he’d been told about the problem, he rewired several of the circuit breakers.
§ Wednesday evening
I get home, verify that the power seems to have been working continuously, and power up all of my computers. It has now been a week since we first started having problems.