When it ALL Falls Apart

Our apartment is becoming a sort of legend... When we first moved in, as my dad will testify, there were many problems with it: only two burners worked on the stove and only one knob (which you move back and forth between them), there was no hot water in the kitchen sink (making sanitation in dishwashing very difficult), there was no water pressure in the sink (literally, a trickle of water), many lightbulbs were weak or burned out, and the furniture was falling apart. All of these things, my roommates and I were willing to accept for a short period of time until the housing department could get around to us (we even filled out forms!)...well, it has now been three weeks and what were once small problems have now become more significant ones. We can also add to the list of broken things: the fruit basket which refuses to cooperate (it kept falling down and the links of its chain kept coming apart, so we just took it down for good), one of the phones to our outside door (when people buzz up you talk to them on this phone) wont stay on the hook, the coffee pot spews coffee out of the sides (Italian coffee pots are different from American ones), and the refrigerator decided not to cool!!! Yes, thats right: the big kahuna, our fridge (complete with cheeses, yogurt, milk and meat). It seems that our forms were not forceful enough because it has now been almost 4 weeks, so we have decided to go in like the Mod Squad and tell Housing that we have needs...like the need to not get some kind of disease and spend two days in our bathroom from spoiled food. I think its going to be a successful errand and hope that in a week we will be up and running at a more functional level. To be honest, living with all of our calamities is as funny and entertaining as it is inconvenient and this venting is as much a statement of hilarity as it is of discouragement. We're doing what we can and part of being here is being creative...we are expanding our minds in dealing with our broken apartment...or something like that.