The Power Outage

Our apartment has had a power outage problem for past 3 days. Today the problem was finally solved.

Late Saturday night (wee hours of Sunday) we experienced a couple temporary power outages. I wasn't there for it, I was at an unemployment party (not mine, the host of the party). When I got home my roommates informed me of this odd problem. Sure enough, an hour later the power went out again. I was at my laptop computer when it happened and it was pretty strange to experience my entire room going dark at once while the laptop screen be unaffected. But I was limited to what I could do since the wireless router for the Internet needs electricity. The past two outages had power back on within 10 or 15 minutes. It was not so this time.

I awoke Sunday morning and found the situation unchanged. That day we noticed that the microwave and toaster were still on. So every outlet except one had no power. This was quite odd. We called our landlord and he sent out a handyman. The handyman said it must be ComEd's problem. We called ComEd. They said it was a problem with the building. And this time I was on the side of ComEd; the people across the hall had power so it must be a problem within the building. Thus, the landlord's issue to solve.

Cut to Monday after work and the situation wasn't improved. I was ticked off. We had no electricity for almost 48 hours. At this point my more genius roommates had used an extension cord to connect the one outlet with power to our fridge, so at least our food was safe. But I was still mad. My barking voice mail made our landlord send an electrician this time.

The electrician came and assured us that, yes, the problem was within the building. He thought it must be at the main fuse in the basement. The problem was that the basement was part of the downstairs cleaners and we couldn't get in there without their permission since they were a tenant too. Fortunately, the electrician was able to give us a temporary fix. In the fuse box in our actual unit, there were three fuses. It looked like all but one of our unit outlets were tied into two out of the three fuses. The third fuse powered just that one lone outlet that was powering our microwave and toaster (and now the fridge). So the electrician made a bypass at the fuse box that gave us power. But we would need to be very economic with our lights usage otherwise that fuse would blow.

Tuesday after work the electrician came by along with our landlord with the keys for the basement. The owner of the cleaners were also there. Sure enough, the main fuse in the basement was the problem and all was better. The electrician came back up to our apartment and undid the temporary fix. Finally the problem was officially fixed.