9/11 part 2

so, i thought the last post was all i was going to write on 9/11. wrong. wrong. wrong.

this years 9/11 included a call to the emergency fire hotline notifying them of a smoldering fire in my apartment. they came with 2 big trucks, one small truck, one police car and one ambulance.

really, there are months where nothing exciting happens at all and now i have a wedding, a bavarian of all weddings!, and i get the bouquet and then i have firefighters in my apartment??? no, in case you were wondering, they were not sexy and i was way to distracted anyways.

what happened was that we had a big storm with a lot of rain. above my apartment is a big terrace, a sun room/conservatory and then the actual apartment starts. apparently it rained so hard that the water came through the roof of the sun room, flooded their floor and right below that is my hallway with my electricity unit. the water ran down one wall right where my electricity unit is and the result was a smoldering smell and some weird cracking noise.

i was only in the hallway because i was on my way to the kitchen and i smelled something burning but thought it came from a different apartment. and then i heard the crackling sound. so i turned on the lights and saw the water coming down the wall, right into the unit, and running down below it with a shade of black.

obviously i was freaking out not sure if there was a fire in the wall or what. so i called the only emergency number i had in mind (in germany we have separate numbers for police, fire department and ambulance) but that was the police. they told me to call the fire department which i did and they said they are coming.

in the meantime i went to my neighbors and rang them out of bed because crazy neighbor and the ones under me have kids so if we need to leave the house quick they should know. crazy neighbor went into my apartment, went even more crazy, grabbed some things and then we heard the sirens. sirens yes, but no firefighters on the stairs….mh….

so i went downstairs and met them on the second floor and told them where my apartment was. i guess they were a little disappointed that there was no fire per se (geez, sorry guys!) but they did work. they did the whole electricity check thing, checked on the apartment above me and in the basement where the house electricity is centered.

then they told me that only a certified electrician should work on this and that it is possible there is still a small fire somewhere in the wall. oh nice. thank you very much. so there i was, standing in the dark apartment with a burned electrical unit and no clue of what to do.

i called up a friend who lives near by to see if i can stay with her – because i did not want to sleep in an apartment where there is a chance that this thing will burn down! and i finally got a hold of the facility manager who promised me that he will look into solving this tomorrow morning and that he’ll have to touch base with the owner of the apartment first because someone needs to pay the electrician and it’s not going to be him or me.

i really hope this can be solved tomorrow. i guess i can live another night without electricity, or even with a damaged wall if they need to fix something. but i cannot live with the fact that nothing gets done.

to sum it up, i am a little embarrassed that so many firemen came out for “no fire” but i am beyond relieved that this happened while i was awake and able to act. if this had happened 2 hours later i would have been asleep and this would have probably turned into a big fire, affecting even more apartments.

this is how my 9/11 ends. good lord, i am exhausted!

franzi

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