When Erin and I first moved into our new place, the heater in her room didn't work. We discovered this a few weeks in, because you don't really need a heater in Berlin in summery September. However, when it got unseasonably cold in early October, she started to notice something was up with the heater. Staying ice cold when it's turned up to 5 (the max) just didn't seem right. We called the house manager, who dutifully sent someone by to fix it the same day, leaving us problem free for a few weeks.
Then last week, before we left to go to New York for Jon & Siobhan's wedding (which was gorgeous and wonderful, btw... for a happy distraction, I'll add a picture from the ceremony to the end of this post) Erin's heater stopped working again. On top of that, there was a growing splotch of mold spreading menacingly across the wall behind it. It took a few tries to get someone in the house manager's office to talk to me this time, since they're swamped with broken heaters already and it's been down in the single digits all week. When I finally got someone on the phone, he told me apologetically that it would be a few days before the could send someone. But he did have a possible quick-fix for me.
"Just bang the pipes with a hammer," he said. I asked him if he was sure. I didn't want to break it, after all, and make a worse mess of the situation. He assured me I wouldn't break it. Maybe something had gotten backed up or frozen inside that just needed to be smacked loose, he said.
And low and behold, it worked! Heat is restored to Erin's room. Now, we've just got to stop the spreading mold splotch and we'll be good to go.