Two mysteries

Much of today was devoted to trying to get the utilities in the apartment turned on. The gas and electricity seemed relatively easy. Pam just had to get on the phone with the company, give them vast amounts of information about us and the building, and listen to lengthy explanations of nothing in particular. That took about 45 minutes. Then the company emailed a bunch of documents that just had to be signed and returned. Facile!

While we were waiting for the documents, we went to the water company, which has an office in town. There we ran into problems, because the water meter we thought serviced our apartment was the wrong one.

One corner of the courtyard

I don't think I've explained that our building is actually one half of a pair of buildings that share the same entry and the same address. We're in the newer part that faces the street. Behind us is the older half, a building parts of which are supposedly from a few centuries ago, with a separate staircase. Our seller's papa, Signore M., lives in the older half, on the same floor as our place; we can see his apartment when we look across the courtyard from our kitchen window.

The older half, as seen from our kitchen

The electrical and gas meters for both buildings are all together--the gas in a cabinet in the courtyard, the electrical in a dark, rather grimy room down in the cantina below the old building. We assumed our water meter was one of several that are down there, too, in an even darker, damper section of the cantina. It's a musty little cave crowded with someone's household junk, so no wonder we got the wrong one. Now we had to go back and find the right meter before proceeding.

But once we were there, we realized that none of the meters in the cantina matched the number we were supposed to be looking for. Moreover, there were only six meters, yet there are way more apartments at our address. Where were the other meters? We could not find them anywhere.

Desperate, we went up to Signore M.'s apartment, rang the bell, and asked him to help us. He turned out to be not only at home, but suffering from the flu. Nevertheless, he very gallantly tottered out of his sickbed and came downstairs. It turned out that he didn't know where the other meters were either. It took him several phone calls to solve the mystery.

Two bags of leaves, a trap door, and a broom

At one end of the courtyard was a rusty metal trapdoor. (Can you spot it in the photo? It's straight under the air conditioner, behind the broom.) He pried it up, revealing an alarmingly deep hole and an old wooden ladder leading down to an underground chamber. That's where the other water meters were.

Signore M. was ready to climb down there, but he was clearly feverish, so we wouldn't permit it. Instead Danny heroically made the descent. Armed with his smartphone flashlight, he found the meter and got the information we needed. Jubilation all around.

We returned to the water company office and astonished the ladies there by showing them the photo. (Apparently this sort of arrangement isn't common in Italy, either.) Within a few minutes, the water had been activated. We were home free, if you didn't count all the hook-up fees.

But then we looked over the documents that the gas-and-electric folks had emailed. In addition to numerous signatures, we were supposed to provide strings of numbers identifying the apartment--not just the address, but all kinds of other numbers that perhaps refer to surveyor's markings or city maps. Pam couldn't understand what we were supposed to put in there, and neither could Romano. Neither could Franca or a friend she called who works for the city, but was home because the city offices are closed on Fridays. Neither could Massimo's boss at the real estate company. This was how we spent most of the afternoon and early evening, with some time out for a nap.

Now the day is over and we are still grappling with this second mystery, which so far remains unsolved. Pam thinks she can winkle the answers out of the gas-and-electric company tomorrow over the phone. If she can't, we may not be able to turn the power on until we come back here in the spring. Which would not be the end of the world, I suppose.