Mexico Stories - My Apartment

(Ongoing rants from a gringo working in Silao, Mexico, til March '06)

GAS - We have a gas stove and an on-demand gas water heater (no hot water tank, just a gas burner for the hot-water line as it snakes out to the kitchen and bathrooms.) There is no public utility gas line to the house; somewhere on the roof over my head is our gas tank, with a line/spigot leading out/down to the parking garage. When we need more gas, a little man in a tanker truck drives up, connects to the spigot, and fills our tank. The system has no pressure gauge - the only way we know when to call him is when we are out of gas - like right after this morning´s cold shower...

BED - My bed is very hard. I'm used to it now, but I move a lot in my sleep and at first, I woke up every time I turned over and broke off a piece of my hip.

FLOORS - The floors are all tiled; offering a nice cooling effect, but absolutely no noise dampening at all (I would very much like to dampen my neighbor's baby).

CLEANING - On Tuesdays and Fridays we have a nice cleaning lady who comes and cleans the bathrooms, mops the floors, does the dishes, launders our clothes, and watches our T.V. (*I* don't know how to watch our T.V.)

LAUNDRY - The first time the cleaning lady came, there were 4 of us in the apartment. I wondered how she would separate each of our clothes from the others'. She didn't. We had to pick our belongings out of a community pile of clean laundry. It´s like Michael J. Fox and his underwear in "Back to the Future"; it's a good thing I'm the only one named "Calvin Klein".

SECURITY - The only way INTO our building is via the "6 perso" elevator in the parking garage (we haven't been able to fit more than 4 gringos in it at a time). You need a key to activate/call the elevator. The door at the bottom of the stairwell next to the elevator in the garage is padlocked shut, making the elevator the only way OUT of the building, too.

COSTS - Today, the landlord left 2 bills at the apartment - one for 1,000 DOLLARS for the rent, the other for 850 PESOS for "maintenance", including the elevator, the hall light, and the little man who stands in the parking garage at night.