All the modern conveniences

All the modern conveniences - NOT, part 5

15 desk phones, 8 alarm clocks, 2 fridges, a drier and a washing machine, 6 smoke alarms, 4 fans, 2 internal door locks, 2 external door locks, a safe room door, a fuse box timer, the phone jack two times, several sinks and toilets, a hot water dispenser, two keyboards, and a computer - this is what I have had to replace in recent years in SSOI. At this moment, I have leaks in a toilet and a sink. I already fixed a toilet and a sink. Two doors won't close even though we have had them fixed twice. The wood beams to hold a succah on my patio have fallen off twice. The doorbell has never worked. There's another switch at my front door that seems to do nothing. I don't know what it's for.

Another switch that does nothing.

Wall socket covers continually fall off and leave scary metal parts exposed.

Typical light fixture:

Light fixture in the apartment building:

At the shul where I daven, all the door handles to the toilets are broken as are two of the toilets. The floor keeps flooding.

Water damage in the building:

Used to be MUCH worse. Was recently painted.

Weird wires stick out of the walls in all sorts of places.

I have fixed my water heater twice, and even when it works, it doesn't provide enough hot water for a full family to shower within two hours of Shabbos. And you have to remember to turn it off for after a few hours it can explode. Yes, explode.

The elevator breaks often. I have rescued people from there at least 6 times.

Also, there are no closets in the small bedrooms here. You have to buy a standing closet that makes the small room even smaller. And I have had to replace doors on the standing closets numerous times because they are junk.

Because in this land of alleged "all the modern conveniences" the devices keep breaking. In the store, there are few choices, maybe 2 types of alarm clock 4 types of phone, all of which the store keepers know little about. But they all break. They sell junk here. My pants fall apart too. I keep replacing them. And it's more expensive too. Polyester pants that fall apart are $60. In America, cotton pants that last a decade are $20. Computers and cars twice the price. And salaries are 1/4 what I had in America.

I dare say that nothing I buy here works.

Even the luggage compartments on many of the buses don't work. The last three times I tried to load luggage onto a bus, I was told by the driver that it doesn't work. We had to lug the bags up the bus stairs.

Here's one of the bus times signs that don't work.

Admittedly, this was the result of vandalism, not necessarily faulty construction; although several of the ones that I have seen not working do not appear to have suffered from vandalism. Either way, the result is the same. Another broken convenience. And once broken, they don't get fixed. This one has been broken for two years.

Now, I'm not saying that's all the end of the world. It could be that living in EY is worth having to deal with junky products. Just know what you are getting into, and know that the claim "it has all the modern conveniences" is a bunch of hogwash.