No Lift

Our building is over 30 years old, which naturally means there are things that are going to need updating. One of those is the elevator, and as we live on the sixth floor, you can imagine that we are in favor of them doing whatever needs doing (and particularly before the elevator breaks down). Unfortunately, the nature of the fixes involves the elevator being taken out of commission.

They had originally planned to do some work last August, but supply chain delays meant that didn’t end up happening. More recently, we heard that the work would be done in two pieces, with a shorter outage (about two days) to replace the pump as soon as it was in, and a longer outage (possibly two weeks, ugh) in spring or summer, doing I no longer remember what-all. 

So on Monday, there was a sign in the elevator that said the first one was happening this week, and the elevator would be out of commission on Wednesday and Thursday, sorry for the short notice. I had a chiropractor appointment on Wednesday, so I changed that to Friday (ominous foreshadowing).

They weren't here first thing Wednesday, but mid-morning we were told that hey, yes, they’re still coming, on the way, but it might go into Friday now. And Wednesday late afternoon, yes, they’re coming tonight to remove the pump, replacing it Thursday.

Thursday morning’s update was that they came the night before but didn’t realize they needed a lift to get the pump in/out of the elevator room (no one noted there are stairs? really?), so they would be starting Friday and finishing Saturday.

Friday morning, they were actually here! Which of course meant that I was climbing the stairs after my appointment, huff, huff, huff (my knees hate that many stairs).

This morning, a neighbor told us that they heard that they had to order a part…and were “hoping” the elevator will be working again on Monday.

This afternoon, official word: they had installed the pump and it didn't work, so they need to have engineering figure out what part isn't working in order to fix it. And of course, Monday being a holiday* will probably complicate things**.

*Before this, I was pleased that Monday is a holiday. Of course, I usually like living on the sixth floor and having the view, too.

**This is the part that kind of broke me. I've head a moderately bad headache all day and this just had "final straw, time to lose your shit" written all over it.

So: further updates to come, but meanwhile, who wants to place a bet as to when it will really be working again?