No, don't worry. "Racket" doesn't refer to noisy neighbors. It refers to the rip off of the standard apartement lease in Paris. Let me explain.
At the beginning of October, our water heater in the kitchen went out. I phoned the company is assigned to 'help' us with things like this. I am informed that the standard lease for an apartement in Paris dictates that *we* have to pay for fixing the 8 year old water heater that came with the apartment. Exsqueeze me?
But wait, it gets better. We can't choose an honest plumber, we are required to have the plumber who works for the company owning the building fix it. He comes by for less than 10 minutes, waggles a screwdriver for a minute under it, and tells us if it doesn't work in two days he'll have to replace it. It breaks in 3 days. So basically we had to pay for the plumber of their choice dictate that we have to fork over more $$ for a new heater. It finally arrived yesterday, and we now have hot water.
The really special thing is that they will wire without our authorization as much $$ out of our bank account as they please for the heater, plus the 5 hours of labor it took to install it.
What a racket. It doesn't seem right to have the people renting the apartment pay for replacement of appliances that came with the apartement.
Oh, I wanted to adjust the thermostat on the new heater. The knob in the picture is the only visible control I can get to without unscrewing a large plate off the bottom of the heater. It looked vaguely like it might be a thermostat. Luckily I looked up Vidange.... It means Drain in English. So I'm glad I didn't turn that knob.
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