Old rants and new
Things I know I've ranted about online before (though I have no idea whether it was here or one of the long-lost older blogs) but really need to rant about again:
- Chinese carpenters are incapable of making cupboard doors that stay shut. Currently all of mine are being held colsed by gaffer tape. This is not an ideal situation. (Also the door to the wardrobe fell off because they'd only used one screw on each hinge instead of three. V fixed it with nails, which is even less professional, but at least I can keep the cats out of my clothes again.
- rock-solid Chinese kitchen floors that smash anything you drop on them. Just broke one of my favourite mugs.
Things I haven't ranted about before, but want to:
- The lifts in our building. There are two lifts which serve 28 floors (that's quite an average building height for Shanghai). The left-hand lift stops at the even-numbered floors, and the right-hand one serves the odd. The left-hand one was out of commission for five days last week, leading to long waits and much frustration as the entire population of the building struggled to use one lift, and everybody who lives on an even-numbered floor (like us) having to either walk up or down a dark, steep flight of stairs every time they wanted to go in or out. If it was annoying for us, what was it like for the elderly, disabled, or those trying to deal with pushchairs and prams?
On Sunday night I came back to find that the right-hand lift had malfunctioned as well. The caretaker told me it would be about fifteen minutes until the repair guy arrived, so I walked up twenty-four flights. I'm fit enough to manage that without too much trouble, but some people just can't.
I was seriously relieved that the friends we had invited over for dinner that night had cancelled on me at the last minute, because making guests walk up twenty-four flights of stairs would be a bit embarrassing. (Luckily V didn't mind being forced to clean the flat in honour of guests who didn't show - we split the tasks, he cleaned and I cooked. His response was, "Great, that means I get to eat all the food," so at least he found the bright side.
- Chinese carpenters are incapable of making cupboard doors that stay shut. Currently all of mine are being held colsed by gaffer tape. This is not an ideal situation. (Also the door to the wardrobe fell off because they'd only used one screw on each hinge instead of three. V fixed it with nails, which is even less professional, but at least I can keep the cats out of my clothes again.
- rock-solid Chinese kitchen floors that smash anything you drop on them. Just broke one of my favourite mugs.
Things I haven't ranted about before, but want to:
- The lifts in our building. There are two lifts which serve 28 floors (that's quite an average building height for Shanghai). The left-hand lift stops at the even-numbered floors, and the right-hand one serves the odd. The left-hand one was out of commission for five days last week, leading to long waits and much frustration as the entire population of the building struggled to use one lift, and everybody who lives on an even-numbered floor (like us) having to either walk up or down a dark, steep flight of stairs every time they wanted to go in or out. If it was annoying for us, what was it like for the elderly, disabled, or those trying to deal with pushchairs and prams?
On Sunday night I came back to find that the right-hand lift had malfunctioned as well. The caretaker told me it would be about fifteen minutes until the repair guy arrived, so I walked up twenty-four flights. I'm fit enough to manage that without too much trouble, but some people just can't.
I was seriously relieved that the friends we had invited over for dinner that night had cancelled on me at the last minute, because making guests walk up twenty-four flights of stairs would be a bit embarrassing. (Luckily V didn't mind being forced to clean the flat in honour of guests who didn't show - we split the tasks, he cleaned and I cooked. His response was, "Great, that means I get to eat all the food," so at least he found the bright side.