(I wrote this in Paris Baguette on Fuzhou Lu, in a little exercise book.)
We’ve been hearing pops.
It started a few nights ago. We were at home, watching a DVD in our bedroom, when there has been an audible pop from somewhere near the kitchen.
The sound is unmistakeable, because it is usually such a shock when one hears it.
You probably know what I mean. You turn on a light, or plug in an appliance, and there’s a loud pop, an alarming flash of blue light, and all the lights turn off.
You instinctively call out to anyone in earshot that it’s ok, that you know where the fusebox is, and you’ll take care of it.
So the other night, as Aika and I were watching an episode of “Oliver’s Twist”, you can imagine our surprise when we heard that exact kind of pop. We looked at each other in alarm, and wandered around the apartment, unplugging appliances and checking power points for scorch marks.
Nothing.
We went back to watching our DVD.
Over the course of that night, we heard that pop a few other times. And the night after that too. It got to the point that I started thinking that it had to be something else. After all, if it was an electrical short circuit, shouldn’t there be a flash? Shouldn’t all the lights go off? Shouldn’t the circuit breaker kick in? None of these things happened. So by this morning, when I heard the popping sound again, I had actually dismissed the possibility that the sound was electrical.
I work from home and usually sit in front of a desk in front of the TV. This was the first time that I had heard the popping noise when I wasn’t in another room, so this time I could hear that it was coming from near the kitchen. I decided to investigate, so put my laptop on our dining table and started working there, as it is much closer to our kitchen, and the source of the sound. I thought that if I sat a little closer to the sound, I’d be able to hear more clearly what it was the next time it went off.
I didn’t have to wait long. POP!
It sounded like it was coming from the floor. Perhaps the floorboards creaking? Impossible. Nothing creaks that loudly! Were their any electrical wires running under our wooden floorboards? I didn’t think so. I shrugged and went back to work.
POP!
Another few minutes had gone by when I heard another pop the biggest so far. I was quite sure that it was coming from underneath the floorboards or perhaps next door. But NO ONE lives next door to us on that side. Next to that wall is only…
I had a terrible realisation.
Next to our apartment is the room which houses the engine and winch that operate our building’s lift (elevator). I am not sure exactly what goes on in there; I have only seen the inside of it once. – One afternoon on my way home there was a maintainance guy working on something in there and he had left the door open. I can’t describe what was in the room other than there was a lot of machinery and presumably a lot of electricity. Imagine a lift, and how big the engine that is needed to lift it, and then consider how much electricity such an engine requires, and finally try to imagine the sparks that are created when such an electric flow malfunctions in some way, and you might imagine the panic that sprouted in me.
If something had gone wrong in that room, it might mean that those popping sounds WERE in fact electrical discharges, and that was bad for me, being next door.
I freaked out a little. Over the last few days I have been trying to convince Aika that it can’t POSSIBLY be something electrical that is making those noises. – The first night we heard them, we unplugged everything electrical that we have, and still the noise persisted, so I had eliminated the possibility that they were electrical from my mind.
It hadn’t occured to me that they might be electrical sounds coming from OUTSIDE the apartment.
So while the sudden realisation that they might actually BE electrical discharges didn’t quite make me shit a brick, they did cause me to squeeze my cheeks somewhat.
I did something that’s quite funny in hindsight. Safety first though!
There are some cheap shoes that were popular for a while called CROCs. They are made of cheap plastic, and look like clogs. Aika and I have a pair each. Well, I put on Aika’s pink pair, and stuffed them into my own pair, so that I was wearing two pairs of CROCs at the same time. Only Aika’s didn’t fit entirely into mine so it looked like I was in high heels. Plastic high heels… My reasoning was scientific: Electricity always looks to reach earth through the fastest route, so I thought that by insulating myself I’d not get electrocuted. I could barely walk though.
I went to the guardroom at the entrance to our complex, and explained what was going on. The guard said that he’d send someone up.
I went back to the apartment to wait. While I waited, there was another pop. At this point I wasn’t absolutely sure that these sounds were even electrical in origin, but I was sufficiently freaked out to say “bugger this” and dashed out of the house. Better to be safe than sorry. Anything was better than sitting at home waiting to be electrocuted!
I went downstairs to wait for the lift. It occured to me as I was waiting that my downstairs neighbors might be able to help. Those pops were pretty loud and they would have heard them.
One of the apartments was empty, but the other was answered by a man in work clothes. I nervously explained that I had been hearing what I thought were electrical discharges and was worried that we were all about to be electrocuted by a bolt of lightning. I was prepared for the incredulous look and the language problems, but his reqction wasn’t anything like that.
“Yeah, that’s us.” he said.
I was shocked, relieved, angry and terrified all at once.
“Wa…?”
“We’re doing some work upstairs.”
“But there was a big bang…”
“Yeah, I know.”
I think that I have a healthy fear of electricity. Anything that involves something more complicated than plugging in something, anything that involves sparks and scorch marks makes me nervous.
This is why I had trouble understanding that a) these guys knew that they were causing these electrical bangs and b) they didn’t really find anything remarkable in that.
This just freaked me out even more. I threw some things into my gym bag and rushed out the door.
I spent about an hour at the gym, got some lunch and came home, then got back to work.
It was quiet for a while, but after about an hour I heard another pop, followed by another. I put on my high heels and went back downstairs.
There was a large group of people in the apartment this time. I talked to an older guy who seemed similarly unconcerned about electric explosions.
I think it’s not unreasonable to be concerned that the electric bangs coming from my neighbours’ apartment will harm me. I have left the apartment, maybe out of an over abundance of caution, but I feel that it’s better to be safe than sorry.
I’m sitting in a coffee shop as I write this, Aika is at work, and I sincerely hope that my neighbours are sitting around waiting for the wiring to be fixed, and aren’t smouldering corpses, victims of a freak electrical explosion.
