I got a call this morning from HPD (housing and preservation department, I think). Now, I think I confused the caller by being so happy to hear from the HPD(I had made friends with this lady named Reva last time I was at the HPD office and overall have a pretty positive expectation of them). But they told me they had received a complaint from an apartment that there was no heat and hot water in the building.
Normally, no heat and hot water in a building in the middle of winter is my worst nightmare, but I was more confused than anything. First of all, the apartment they claimed made the call was the apartment of my superintendent, who calls me directly for all problems that she and my other super (who lives two doors down) can’t handle. Second of all, there was a backed up sewer pipe the night before and I had my plumber/boiler expert there for a couple hours to fix that. I figure if the boiler and the heater were out, he would at least let me know. Third of all, after calling my super and seeing if the heat and hot water had somehow fixed themselves, she told me there was never any problem and the water was “caliente.”
This makes me wonder, does the HPD do any kind of checking to see if prank calls are coming in or if the caller really is a tenant? I have been getting crank calls on my business line (i assume from someone that i evicted 3 months ago, who flushed enough diapers down the drain to cause the sewage problem I was just talking about.)
BTW, if anyone needs a plumber, let me know. I have great faith in Andy, a Polish immigrant who is also taking computer science right now (though frankly, I think you get paid a lot more as a plumber).