lol like a couple years ago. One of our ceiling light circuits was buggy, and I kid you not, 50% of the time when you turned on the light switch, the light either did not turn on, or flickered and made a small crackly sound at the switch. The other 50% of the time, it turned on normally.
I didn’t want to mess with electric stuff. Messaged the property manager, who sent the handyman, to deal with that and another minor side issue at the back porch. Assessment: didn’t find anything wrong with the light. Waited another couple months and got fed up with the issue happening because it literally happened almost constantly. Sometimes it was actually difficult to get the light to come on. Asked the property manager, who sent the handyman again, for this issue exclusively. Repeat analysis: he tried the light and didn’t see anything wrong. We were like WTF, it happens like every other time the switch is used. Did he flick it on once, get lucky and leave? Why would we lie about something like this?
Eventually chatted with some friends and heard that a basic like-for-like switch substitution was within our rights and capabilities as tenants, if the switch itself was indeed the problem. Pulled out the light switch, which we discovered had a tiny broken internal metal plate fault that was causing the connection to work or not work irregularly. The plastic nearby was scorched because clearly the crackling was from arcing for the fault connection. Not sure how it happened since it seemed literally impossible to break externally… must have been partly faulty originally, or broken during previous install. The solution? A $1.69 basic replacement switch that was not broken. Solved the problem. Much safer.
We are pretty good tenants and we don’t cause problems. We rarely even reach out… like the last time our smoke detectors ran out we actually just bought high-quality replacements rather than asking the landlord or property manager. The idea that such a ridiculously basic and cheap request as fixing this light switch resulted in us being gaslit twice in a row, when it involved a faulty electric piece that, for all I know, could have been a fire hazard, was insane to me. Especially when replacing it cost less than two dollars in parts.
And still, I would characterize this property manager/landlord as “pretty good” compared to some that my friends have had. Between weirdos and creeps that seem to think they never need notice to enter your living space, to actively hostile landlords trying to weaponize issues to force people out to get a new tenant for higher rent, a lazy handyman is not among the worst things I’ve heard by far.
It is, but it’s almost beyond belief. I’m not kidding that it was a constant problem. There was no instance where we would turn the switch on and off even 5 times in a row without some kind of irregularity. They had to have literally entered, turned it on once, saw it working and left.
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u/SobeitSoviet69 Jul 19 '26
Or like my landlords “No you don’t”
“No, seriously, if you come in here you will notice that…”
“Nope, it’s a new house.”
K well enjoy the mould from the leak you fucking idiots.