You’d think that all we needed to do on our first night in our new apartment was to unpack as much as possible, and settle into a well-deserved night’s sleep. Well, you’d think wrong.

I’ll remind all that it’s summer, and a Xiamen summer isn’t balmy. If it’s a clear day, it’s boiling hot. If it’s overcast, it’s hot and extremely humid. Air conditioning is a must for all spoiled foreigners in the city. Needless to say, the real estate agent, H (who, by the way, has earned his commission, no question), informed us that he couldn’t get a hold of the person who is in possession of the air conditioner remote controls.

“Just suffer tonight with the fan and I’ll get you the remotes tomorrow,” he said.

We do have a fan, so I figured it we could deal and not be too warm and uncomfortable.

There were a few more small items we needed to move, and we required a food fix, so off we went to accomplish those missions.

Home we came, laden with three laptops and assorted electrical items, sweaty and ready to have a shower in our new apartment, when we realised that the main breaker had tripped. And we couldn’t turn it back on. We weren’t in darkness, we had power, just an inability to use anything that required plugging into a socket, which included our water heater and fan. One of the guards came up and found that the breaker in the bathroom was causing the trip, so our fan came back on, but hot water was unavailable (and we could also hear water from the heater leaking inside the walls, which certainly made me feel safer).

Did I mention that I’d picked up a chest cold that weekend?

The next morning was known as weary. H despatched a plumber and air conditioner service man, both of whom had an opinion on our breaker / electricity problem. The plumber’s electrician friend arrived and also gave his opinion. Tools were bared, switches were flicked, breakers were turned off and on in an attempt to troubleshoot the issue.

Every time one of them claimed to have isolated the offending circuit (socket?), they would disconnect it and turn everything back on. The main breaker would trip all over again. Back to the drawing board. This went on all afternoon, until the air conditioner service man gave up and went home. The plumber and electrician bypassed the main breaker (they’d decided the main breaker was faulty), said they’d come back with a new one the next day, and went home.

Hell, at least we had air conditioning that night.

To cut the long story short, the main breaker was not faulty (cue and repeat the entire afternoon of fix and trip, fix and trip), water is still leaking inside the bathroom walls, one air conditioner is not working, and the flat is not so clean. All in good time, and a good time will be had at the flatwarming and things will need to be cleaned again.