Last night was a thrilling exercise in what to do when your apartment smells like gas.

Like most people, when we smelled gas, we were freaked out. What was interesting was that we weren't smelling natural gas, we were smelling gasoline. I called Columbia gas and explained the problem, and the dispatcher sounded a little perplexed when I said I smelled gasoline, but she sent someone out anyway. She told us to stay in the apartment if the smell was only in one room, but not to mess with appliances. As it was, the smell was so nauseating that we ended up waiting in the hall for the last few minutes.

When the gas guy arrived, he walked in and immediately said he didn't know why he was there, since the problem was obviously that we'd spilled a solvent or something. The smell was coming from under the sink, so we opened that up and it got really bad. He stuck his meter down the drain, and in the dishwasher, and determined that yes, it DID smell like gasoline, but damned if he knew what to do about that. We remembered that we'd soaked some mittens that had gasoline on them in the sink before tossing them in the wash, but that had been Monday, so surely the two couldn't be related, right??

So the gas guy called the fire department, asking what we could do to get rid of the smell. The fire department asked a dozen questions and then decided THEY needed to come out to take a look personally.

Meanwhile, the gas guy, who was really very understanding considering it wasn't his problem, decided to poke around by the furnace anyway, since what the hell, he was already at the apartment. He opened the door to the furnace and said "woah, I smell gas." Well, duh. The whole freaking apartment smelled like gas and everyone was about ready to vomit. Well---turns out that in addition to gas fumes leaking up our kitchen drains, we also had a NATURAL gas leak in our furnace. Not a big one, but a small leak that had actually been happening for at least a month. We didn't smell it because the furnace closet has some outside ventilation. Hurrah! So the gas guy, grasping the gravity of an apartment with TWO types of gas leaks, shut off the heat.

We're in a third-floor apartment, so usually the place is very warm. However, Cleveland's been pretty cold lately (eight degrees, three degrees, negitive seventeen with the windchill...) so it started to get really cold rather quickly.

I couldn't find the handyman's number, so I had to go knocking on doors until one of our neighbors reluctantly let us in. See, less than a week ago the apartment management had put a sign on everyone's door saying that "someone" was smoking pot in their apartment, although they'd been "unable to determine which apartment the smell was coming from." Yeah, right. In the memo they asked us to spy on our neighbors and report their suspicious activity to the police. So, here I was at nine at night knocking on an apartment door with a lot of urgency. There was a lot of mumbling behind the door, and finally the woman let me in and gave me the number. She was very nice when she realized I wasn't a spying neighbor or a cop with a drug dog. I went back to the apartment and called the apartment complex dispatcher and reported the furnace thing.

Then the fire department showed up. Four fully dressed firemen. They brought one uniformed police officer as well. I'm not sure why he was there. I guess when they smell gas in an apartment they bring someone along to see if there was any sort of foul play or abject stupidity going on or something. The three of us tried to explain the situation. "Yeah, it smells like gas" they told us. REALLY? An apartment with two gas leaks smelling like gas?

While they were poking around, four full grown men crouched in our small apartment kitchen, taking readings, I got a call back from the handyman. Our furnace wasn't going to be fixed till the next day, he was twenty minutes away, and did we want a space heater? Bryan and I decided no.

Anyway, the fire department said that apparently whoever designed our apartment didn't know jack shit about drains, and the gas we'd washed down the sink in a responsible manner on Monday was somehow trapped in a bad drainage system somewhere between the dishwasher and the garbage disposal. They couldn't fix it, but the handyman could maybe try to take it apart when he arrived to turn the heat on in the morning. The fire department suggested we throw a towel over the traps to minimize the smell, assured us that it was safe. The police officer told us not to throw any matches down the sink for a few days, and they trooped out.

So a handyman is coming today, and this guy is really pretty sweet, so I'm sure he'll take a look at our dishwasher. If the trap is cemented down they might need to take the whole thing out. Hurrah!

So now it's cold, I have a headache and want to throw up, and I'm still really embarassed about last night. I didn't know this utility men could even fit in the apartment, and I'm sure they went home and laughed about the idiots who tried to wash gasoline down the sink four days ago.

I hate February.