Last night the temperature of my house dropped 20 degrees. Our fish started floating upside down. Little work was accomplished because our computers couldn't be turned on and holding steady while shivering was proving to be a difficult task. This was night number two without heat.

The first night started off when we heard crackling and snapping coming from a light switch. We pulled the cover off to find smoke and sparks, so we threw the breaker. Our house is pretty old so it only has three breakers:

One shuts off one half of the house.
Another shuts off the other half.
A third shuts off the entire house.

We thought that we were okay, because the sparks were on one side of the house and the thermostat is on the other, but some crazy wiring in there dictates otherwise.

Our landlords reacted with surprising speed (15 hours later. I don't think I've actually spoken to them since signing the lease, just their answering machine) and sent over a couple of guys to take care of the switch and restore our electricity. We also asked that they fix our broken door lock. A half an hour later they were gone, leaving the switch and all it's guts hanging out of the wall, and instead of fixing the lock, they just locked it, and locked us out of the house.

With much frustration and a near-breaking of our door window, we got back inside. That brought us to night number two, and angry phone calls in the morning. I guess they tried to accuse us of installing and poorly wiring the light switch ourselves, despite the wiring that is obviously from at least the seventies, and the fact that the overhead light was THERE when we signed the lease.

We're paying $300 a month more this year compared to last year for this?

I have friends with different landlords and a couple of them guarantee that within 24 hours of a major problem they'll have that problem fixed; if they don't they get a severe discount on rent.

It's times like this when I'm happy I don't have kids to feed (my dog doesn't require heated meals) and friends who are willing to put me up for the night. I know some people aren't so lucky.

It's also times like this when I think back to when I went to school and we had teacher evaluations. At the end of each semester you were required to anonymously air your grievances to the administration and those comments would be a big part of whether or not the instructor was hired back. The instructors would also be made privy to the information after the semesters end as well.

I wish land lords would have to live in fear of whether or not they'd lose their houses, rather than live in the comfort of the money they are able to burn to keep their houses warm.