Lightbulb Handcuffs

There are 5 lightbulbs in our apartment that need to be changed and I can't do it.

This is one of the things about my experience here that gets under my skin and really, really bugs me. Simple, non-intellectual, normally easy household tasks that normally wouldn't be a big deal become a Huge Project.

And while I sort out the complex details of the situation (kidding), I see the dead bulbs every day and it feels like they're taunting me, "Nyah, nyah, you can't fix me…"

So the reasons why I can't change them (I actually have spare bulbs so that's not even a factor):

1. First, I don't have a tall enough ladder to reach;
2. When I asked one of the guys from the building to borrow their ladder, he brought it but insisted on climbing up for me (how gentlemanly!). Unfortunately, he couldn't figure out how to get the casing that covers the bulb unscrewed from the ceiling. He said a "specialist" must do it (WhAT?!);
3. The building guy left and asked The Specialist to come up, but HE said the landlady needs to request it first (WhATTTTT?! Okay, maybe I understand that - we're in a rental after all.); 
4. And finally, our landlady doesn't speak English so things like this I need to ask Scott's Admin to call her, explain in Russian what is happening and then the landlady will make the request.

OMG. OMG. OMG.

We're talking about lightbulbs!!!!

The Keys to Success

...A brief flashback post from the week of February 25, 2013, when I first got back to Moscow

My first week unfortunately got off to a rough start. Once again I had a problem with the front door - me and Russian doors are just not friends!! - basically I put the key in the wrong lock (there are two locks on the door but we only use one). Well, this key is some fancy-schmancy italian key so it has a little piece of metal on it that swings out for "extra security" so once it went in, it literally got stuck inside the door.  So not only can we not get the key out of the keyhole, we can't lock the door!

We already had a handyman coming to take a look at our shower drain the next day so I asked him to get the key out of the keyhole as well. Well I really should have asked our realty company (we use them as the liaison for managing stuff in the apartment) to call a locksmith and not just a handyman, because in the process of yanking the key out, he BROKE it! He got it out and came over to me saying, "No use." The thing is, we only had those 2 keys. I told him he needed to get me a new one since he was the one who broke it.

When he tried to make a new copy (I'd borrowed Scott's key for the day so we had a "good" one for him to work off of), it turns out to be too fancy to have it made at a normal hardware store. And only the landlord can make copies by special order from Italy!! ARGGGHHHH! So at this point we have just one key that we are sharing. Had we called a locksmith, he wouldn't have broken the key, I'm sure of it. Why? Because Scott did the SAME EXACT THING the first week we lived in this apartment and the locksmith made short order of the problem without damaging the key.

Oh, and after 2.5 hours of tinkering, the same not-so-handyman wasn't able to fix the shower either! Double argghhh.