The fantastical adventures of Mr. Repairman and his cloak of invisibility.

My god.

Home repair clusterfuck story #2nd of many.

So.

As part of purchasing our condo, we also took over the rental of the hot water unit. Which, in our case, is a hot-water-on-demand unit, which heats both our water and our home. How convenient.

Except when it is busted. And then you can only wrap a scarf around your greasy hair, stockpile your dirty dishes, and call a repairman.

But wait.

When you’re renting a hot water tank the only person who can service it is your authorized service provider. It’s not like plumbing. Where anyone with a pipe snaker and a low-riding pair of pants can help you out.

Ah, but then there’s the all important question — who is our service provider?

How do you find that out?

Well, what I did was do a bit of creative guesswork, talk to the stand-in superintendent, and then book an appointment online with Direct Energy. Feeling 75% confident that they were our guys.

Direct Energy has a fantastic online booking system, which I took advantage of on Tuesday to book today’s service call, to take place between 12-4.

Guess what happened?

Oh, you betcha they didn’t come.

I begin to doubt myself. Maybe our account is not with Direct Energy, thinks I. Maybe their online service caught that I was an unauthorized requestee and so they didn’t dispatch anyone (I give technology too much credit).

So I suck it up and decide to start making phone calls until I get some answers. First stop, Direct Energy billing department. Let them know that I’ve just moved in and would like to confirm that we have taken over an account with them.

“Do you have your account number?”

“No, where might I find that?”

“It’ll be on your bill.”

“I don’t have a bill yet, I just moved in a week ago… I wasn’t really anticipating it breaking before my first bill.”

Guy looks up our address, our names, the old owners names. Nadda, nadda, nadda. There is no account with Direct Energy for the address provided. Never has been.

Dang.

I call Enbridge Gas. Proud owners of the one and only label on my hot water unit.

Hi there Enbridge. I just moved in, we’ve taken over ownership of the hot water unit.

“What’s your account number, it’ll be on your bill?”

“I don’t have a bill yet, I just moved in a week ago… I wasn’t really anticipating it breaking before my first bill.”

Looks up our address. Hmmm. Can’t find an address. Are you sure that it’s a gas unit? Yep (I know cuz I done smelled it when it was leaking before). And it’s with Enbridge? Yep. Those are the two things I know for sure, and I’m not letting them go.

“Well maam we have accounts for addresses /similar/ to yours, but nothing that matches yours and nothing for your name — I’m just going to put you on hold for a moment while I get a supervisor.”

(comes right back)

“While you were on hold maam, I’ve found a record with your name and exact address. You are the account holder and it has been active in your name since May 15th. We don’t have a phone number for you though. Can I have one?”

You bet buddy. Here’s mine, my husband’s, my old neighbours, and my best friend’s 4th grade piano teacher’s. Just in case.

“Can you please tell me who the service provider is?”

“Sure I can maam. It’s Direct Energy.”

“Um, I just talked to Direct Energy and they said we definitely, definitely aren’t with them.”

“You’ll just have to not take no for an answer maam. You’re with them. And the owners before you have been with them since 2000. Try asking for an account supervisor. Now, would you like to participate in our service survey?”

Call Direct Energy. But this time, armed with the knowledge that they are indeed my service provider, I’m going not to billing, but to service, to find out why they didn’t bother sending a repairman out today.

One ringy-dingy. Two ringy-dingy.

“Hello, this is Joan, how can I help you?”

Hiya Joan (not her real name). I booked a service call online, and I have the reference number here, and I’m wondering why the serviceman has not shown up.

I wait. Joan looks into it. At first, she can’t find any record of me. Naturally. But suddenly, lo, my full account info and confirmation on a service call show up (wtf is up with these people’s time-lapse databases?).

“Hm. Maam I have confirmation that he has serviced your hot water tank.”

What’s that now?

“Yes maam, he came by earlier today.”

No he didn’t.

“Yes he did.”

No he didn’t.

“Yes he did. He replaced (part name) at 2:43 this afternoon.”

“Well that’s fascinating, because I have been here all day and there has not been so much as a knock at the door. I definitely definitely have not had a serviceman come by today.”

“Well that’s odd. It says that he was there and fixed it already.”

“I see. Well unless he broke into our apartment, replaced the part completely silently, and let himself back out again, he was definitely DEFINITELY NOT HERE.”

“Maam, you said it’s an apartment? Could someone else have let him in?”

She and I now have a wee little discussion on how condos work, and how I gots one front door, and one water heater, and no one has been at either today.

And that I think I would notice if I let a repairman in, and he fixed my hot water tank and then I had a shower. It’s the sort of thing one remembers.

Call centre lady believes me, though she can’t believe this has happened. She reassigns it as open, to be serviced between 4-8pm this evening, and attaches a note for someone to find out what in god’s green earth went down.

She also lets me know, with some trepidation, that the system is automatically assigning it to the same repairman who said he was already here today.

“Does he think he’s here now? Should I look for him? Is he in my kitchen making a sandwich?”

A few minutes later my phone rings. It’s Joe from Direct Energy.

Joe: “I understand there’s been some confusion about whether a Direct Energy serviceman was there today.”

Me: “Oh, I think I’d say there’s been rather a lot of confusion about that.”

Joe (not amused): “No, there wasn’t. He wasn’t there.”

There goes Joan’s theory about the invisible weightless repairman with a rap sheet for breaking and entering.

It turns out that a goodly number of Direct Energy units have had to be serviced on my street today. And some novice at the call centre must have put the wrong info against the wrong address. (Which, btw, I had suggested to Joan, and she assured me was, ahem, “impossible”. Never say never Joan.)

And so my greasy hair and I sit here and wait. With our brand new rescheduled and confirmed open service call.

We wait for the Direct Energy Repairman. We wait, and we believe. Because only a true believer can see through his cloak of invisibility, and hear the pitter patter of his little repairman feet on our patio, and see the crack of his little repairman butt.

Only the true believers.