Utility Bills In Ecuador

Now that I've officially been in the apartment for over a month, it's time for the utility bills to start showing up.

I realized when they did that I'm getting a little local in my ways. Here's the low down:

Gas Bill $2

Water Bill: $6.26

Electric Bill: $47.36

Gas, fine. The stove, dryer, and water heater run on gas.

Water, fine. You know how I feel about hot showers in Cuenca. This is not negotiable.

Electric . . . whoa, whoa, whoa. . . . what is making the electric bill so stinking high? That's ridiculous! I fussed about that for ages. $48 bucks for electricity? For just one month? It's not like I even have heat to be running! That's highway robbery, that's what that is. Huff, huff, whine, whine, whine.

Then I remembered what I used to pay in the states for a month of electricity in November.

Then I just shut up and paid. Although I am turning off the lights relentlessly now and giving my refrigerator nasty looks.

It's little things like the bills that remind me that I'm starting to localize in my approach to prices and expenses more and more each day that I'm here. For example, a $3 cab fare is now pretty steep, and $25 for a nice dinner is eating pretty high on the hog. I spent $8.46 at the office supply store and felt like I got ripped off . . . buying a ream of printer paper, a binder, four sheets of art paper, and an envelope.

And yet I find $64 for unlimited high speed wireless completely reasonable . . . readers, what's the breakdown for you?

If You Love Your Apartment, Don't Clean It

Well my friends, the big day arrived at last and this weekend I moved into my new apartment. I also watched the Texas-Nebraska game, but we're not speaking of that.

Was the wait worth it? On most counts, yes, yes, yes. I am so excited for this place. I have a fabulous view out the kitchen and brand new bathrooms. Despite all the construction mess there was when I first saw it, my apartment in Cuenca has turned out beautifully. Check out these before and after pictures:

The Bathroom:



The Bedroom:



The Kitchen:

On the other hand, despite the construction guys promising to clean, there is dust everywhere. And random spots. The guys did a construction clean, not a my-mother-in-law-is-coming-over level clean. Being opposed to fine layers of white dust on everything I own, I swore to thoroughly clean the whole place as I moved it.

I've finished the bathroom in the master bedroom and one of the closets. Umm . . . .

It all started when I had to go to the bathroom. I was peacefully sweeping in the living room, and I had the urge. I went to the bathroom and flipped the lid up to discover spots on the seat, along with one dusty fingerprint. Not cool. Fortunately, with just a few quick squirts of bathroom cleaner that could be all covered.

The next thing I knew, I was bent over the toilet scrubbing a spot off the back of the S-bend on the base. I don't know what came over me in there, but I wiped down the walls, did the floor inch by inch by hand, scrubbed out the hinges on the doors, and polished that faucet like five times. Something clearly snapped.

And something else snapped . . . because I found about 16 things wrong in there. Tiny, tiny things that you would really only notice if, say, you were on your knees scrubbing out the corners with the tip of your finger. Since I am a product of my raising, I have a list of places to hit with a grouter, wood pen, and WD-40. Just for the bathroom.

Had I not gone all Mr. Clean in there, I would have never seen those things. Lesson learned. If you love your apartment at first, don't clean it anytime soon!

Visiting My Someday Home

Today I went to visit my apartment again. I say visit, because I don't get to live there yet. It's been mine since mid-August, but it's not finished.

Ah, the joys of renting pre-construction. . . no, no joy actually.

Lemme 'splain. No, is too much. Let me sum up.

I HATE WAIT.

Ahem. So I found my lovely, lovely, lovely apartment with the fabulous view of the downtown skyline with the assistance of the wonderful Michael Berger at CuencaCondos. He's a friend (Hi Mike!) and he'd been with me through the stove thief adventures to know what I was in the market to rent.

One day when I was avoiding the apartment hunt drama and attempting to get some actual work done (I have those days. Sometimes.) I got THE CALL. It was Mike, wanting to know what I was doing right then.

"Why?"

"Because if you don't come take one of these places, I'm never speaking to you about apartments again," he said. Really, can you resist that kind of threat? I couldn't. I shut the computer and let him pick me up to take me to Luciano's apartments.

Conveniently for me the picker-outer, the building was still under construction. I got to wander through every unit and indulge my oooh-what's-that instincts to the max. Eventually I settled on a three bedroom, two bath unit on the third floor. It looked like a cement box, with windows, but the rooms were mapped out and the bathrooms were tiled. There was a kid who looked about 14 years old assembling the closet/cabinets for the bedrooms, but he seemed to know what he was doing.

I took it on faith, for $375.

It was supposed to be done with my life moved into it by October 1st.

Ahem. Check your calendars, people. I'm supposed to be doing a lot more than visiting this apartment right now!

I've watched the toilets go in. I've watched the kitchen counters get built. I've learned about the finer details of putting in granite countertops and the joys of floating hardwood floors. I've very narrowly avoided having a mauve living room (Me: "Do these pinkish thumb marks on the wall mean this is the color it's going to be?" Luciano: "Yes" Me: "NO!"), and didn't visit in time to stop from having a wheat/gold accent wall in the master bedroom. I can live with the wall.

Anytime, really. I'm ready to live with the wall!

I do have scads of pictures of the place at various stages of done - when I actually get in there I hope to have the time to post them up for sharing. Now I just use them as comfort, to verify that progress is being made and that someday - SOON - I am going to get to live in this place.

The Great Stove Thief Of Cuenca

Apartments in Cuenca are a process to obtain, that is for darn sure. Along the way you discover all kinds of horrifying aspects of apartment life in other countries, like the electric showers. Occasionally, you discover the opportunity to have a really good laugh.

As with the stove thief.

For background, most apartments in Cuenca are completely unfurnished. And by unfurnished, I mean stripped down to the basics. There aren't bulbs in the light fixtures, appliances in the kitchen, or even mirrors in the bathroom. When you read that an apartment is unfurnished, they aren't kidding

As a foreigner here, I don't come with my own house full of furniture, so I have been looking at furnished apartments, or at the very least partially furnished places that have their kitchen appliances. One of the apartments on my list was this one from Bienes Raices Catedral, Cuenca's largest (for now) real estate agency.

Note the presence of kitchen appliances here.

A few additional notes about Bienes Raices Catedral for your reference. They say on their website that they speak English. This is true over email depending which agent you are talking to at the time, but when you get to the office, you'd better be able to habla Espanol. Though they have a large office, when Pete and I showed up for our appointment there, nobody was speaking any English, which is okay for me, but not so fun for my friend Pete, who is looking for his own place with a dog. Anyway, this is a problem with a lot of real estate places in Cuenca - you have to double check that they really are bilingual! Some can't speak any Spanish, while others can't hack it in English.

Also, the super organized and polished front that they started with quickly went downhill when we started looking at places. The first place they tried to show me was right next door, but it had already been rented and no one had bothered to tell them. Then we drove over to the condo you see in the photo above.

We walk into the place, and it is indeed a good price in a nice building near a park and a main street in the district that I want. However, when we turn to the kitchen, there's a problem.

It's completely stripped.

I mention this to the agent, and he gives me the little speech about how appliances aren't included in unfurnished rentals in Cuenca. Yeah, yeah - I know this from the nice folks over at Cuenca Condos and Cuenca's Best Properties, who've given me quite an education in the local market. But in the listing it specifically says this place is supposed to come with a refrigerator and a stove.

So we get into a little argument about it, since I want a lower monthly rent if there aren't going to be appliances. The agent tells me I'm being unreasonable and reminds me again that this is normal for Cuenca. Yes, but the listing says it comes with appliances, and because I know I'm right and the agent has a Blackberry, I invite him to look it up if he doesn't believe me.

He looks it up, muttering the whole time about how I just don't know the market and really, he's not trying to rip me off and it's a great price and so on. I don't care, I don't want to buy $1500 worth of appliances for a place that's supposed to be furnished. Look it up.

Lo an behold, the foreign lady can actually read Spanish correctly. The apartment description specifically mentions that the appliances are included, listing them by name.

Well, this freaks the agent, because 1) I'm right (Take that, doubter man) and 2) the stuff's not there. He call his office and asks them about it. They verify that the owner listed the appliances as being there, and what does he mean they aren't there now? Where did the appliances go?

We still don't know.

Needless to say, I didn't take the apartment. We left it blaming the Great Stove Thief Of Cuenca. He's a fast one, sneaky and smart, and somewhere he's got a refrigerator and stove, much to my own intense personal amusement and the chagrin of my real estate agent.

Cuenca's Hot Water Disappointment

Anyone who knows me well knows that I have a thing for showers. I LOVE THEM. Long, hot showers are somewhat critical to taking me out of zombie state and into a functional state in the morning. They're relaxing. They're good for thinking. Opera is more fun in the shower. And, as an aside, showers keep me clean.

Cold showers, on the other hand, are the worst things in the world. Nothing makes me more likely to use my worst grown up words, get all grumpy, and start hating on the universe than a cold shower. Woe betide anyone who gives me any excuse at all to be angry with them after I've had a cold shower, because it's going to feel like World War III just broke out.

My Personality After A Cold Shower

So, to the plumbers and electricians and architects of Cuenca, if you as a group don't start engineering better showers in this town, I'm going to hit you with something. Repeatedly.

At the moment, it seems as though every place I've ever taken a shower here {3 apartments + 2 guest showers} and everyone I've talked to has agreed that for the most part, there are three water temperatures available in Cuenca:

• Arctic
• Tepid
• Scalding

Most water heater systems are gas powered, making the problem one of both heat source and pressure. On one hand, in theory, the hot water should never run out since it is continually heated as it is piped in. In practice, you have to get the water pressure just right to maximize the heating power of the gas flame. Too much and its arctic. Too little and its scalding. In the middle and . . . oh, let's face it. I spend 10 minutes a morning standing out of the spray, fiddling with the water, trying to get it to somewhere in the middle and scowling the entire time.

As a means of getting around the acknowledged problem with the gas heated showers, some systems use electric shower heads. Yes, all my North American readers, you read that right. Electric shower heads.

Scary Electric Shower Example #1

Scary Electric Shower Example #2



Thumbs Down Added By Actual User

Install these puppies the wrong way, and you'll get a shower experience you'll never forget. I had one in my second apartment, and let me tell you, fearing for my life cut into my shower time considerably. I also wore rubber flip flops to shower in religiously, just in case.

These death traps appear throughout Latin and South America. According to the Southern Baptist Missionary I talked to Tuesday, in Guatemala they are known as "Widowmakers" which seems about right. I'll never have one again.

The worst part of them, of course, is they still don't give consistently hot water, either. And yet there they are . . . in use . . . creating a whole legion of people with stories about "that time the shower caught on fire" or "the time I fried myself." Good times, people, good times.

It is a good way to distinguish yourself as an in-the-know type when looking for apartments here, though. Green out of towners ask about square footage and bedrooms. Second time around types and seasoned locals? We're asking about the hot water!

A Fiery Morning In Cuenca

Came out of the house and up the road this morning to discover a house in the neighborhood on fire. I was out and about on the way to settle into watch the finals for the World Cup at the Inca Lounge when I noticed the fire.

It looked terrible. A twisting fat finger of flame was rolling up into the sky, framed by billows of black smoke and overlaid with the sounds of people yelling. I was with my friend Ben and we both took off for the fire, he much faster than I given my lifetime commitment to wearing shoes not suited for running anywhere.

By the time I hustled up to the top of the hill near the house, several things were clear:

--It had been raining a lot lately, so the surrounding area was fairly well protected

--Nobody was still in the house and everyone was okay

--The Fire Department was on the way, but the bucket brigade was a pack of all-stars. The back of the house was the center of the fire, and anyone with a clear shot, bucket, or hose was tossing water on it.

--Cement construction keeps things contained.

In just a few minutes the fire was a lot less than it had been, and with the sirens closing in we took off. Still, the memory will stick with me for a while. The fire started with the gas in the kitchen - I guess they were changing the cooking canisters {no central gas here} and something sparked. I'll be tip-toeing around the stove tops for a while!