the real nyc apt experience

two events this week sum up the real nyc apt experience: 1) a 24-hr blackout and 2) killing a giant cockroach.

it all started on tuesday when our electricity cut out at about 3:30pm. my first reaction was that we blew out the power (wouldn't be a wild guess, considering every time a hair dryer is turned on, the lights in the entire apt dim...), but none of the switches in the breaker box had flipped to off, so i thought perhaps it was just temporary and that the power would be back soon. clearly, i had more faith in this city's utilities service than i should.

the calling-our-management-then-waiting game started at 4:30pm and didn't end until 4pm the next day. pretty much, i was calling the building manager every 2 hrs until we went to bed, and resumed again the next morning. electricians were sent over on 3 separate occasions, and my 24 hours were consumed by sitting and staring at the wall in our heated apt and running back and forth to starbucks to charge my phone and computer. long story short, power eventually came back, and when i called the management, complaining and voicing our frustration and inconvenience, i was told to "email propertymanagement@jakobson.com with my comments and suggestions".

....i almost threw my phone out the window.

then this morning, we found a HUGE cockroach lurking in our bathroom behind the toilet. at first, i couldn't see the cockroach, so i grabbed the closest spray bottle (thank you, air freshener) to "smoke" it out from behind the toilet. in between screaming like little girls and calling my parents for cockroach-killing advice (which my dad found hilarious and announced it to the entire group of family friends he was with...), floria and i devised a plan - i would stand guard and watch it while she ran to walgreens to get something deadly. the plan worked and we sprayed the roach with so much raid that, five hours later, our apt still smells like a strange mix of floral air freshener and chemical poison.

here's a photo. for those of you who know my mouse story, this is part two of my saga with household pests. please note that there is nothing to compare the size of the roach with, but do take my word that it was at least 2 1/2 inches long.