Two weeks ago we had just come back from a long, fun, but also tiring day of travel all across Switzerland.  After setting my bags down in the apartment I wanted a nice cold glass of water, but when I poured one from the refrigerator pitcher, the water was warm. Everything in the refrigerator was warm.  Our fridge was broken.

Instead of relaxing, Melissa and I spent the evening throwing away all our food, and wiping down the fridge shelves to get rid of the warm food odor.  We had a moment of hope that the fridge wasn’t really broke, because it would begin cooling if the power button was turned on and off again, but it only stayed on for a little while. Something was definitely wrong, and I would have to figure out how to get it fixed.

I did some searching on the internet, through our lease, and also found a four page letter I had saved from our rental company about the repair process.  In the U.S. if your refrigerator broke your landlord or rental company would be over right away to fix it, and cover the costs.  Here, even after all my research I wasn’t exactly sure if the refrigerator falls under the rental companies responsibility or ours, but my letter said all repairs must go through the concierge ( building superintendent in the U.S.) so I decided to start by calling him.

On Monday, I prepared my usual method of speaking French on the phone, practicing for about 30 minutes, thinking of everything I can that I might have to say, then I called him up.  He came up and looked at the fridge for a second, then called someone on his cellphone.  He spoke to me before leaving and I’m pretty sure I understood everything he said, when he told me that the rental company would send someone over to fix it.

For the rest of the week I was waiting for someone to ring the doorbell at any moment to come fix my problem.  By Friday, still no one had come.  The slowness seemed weird to me, because in the U.S. a refrigerator is an essential appliance, and I think rental companies would move faster to repair it.  I decided to bypass the chain of command and call the rental company that afternoon.  I surprised myself with how well I did in French, and was quickly told by the rental company that they would be sending us a letter in the mail.  The letter would have a phone number of a repair company on it, and we would have to call them to schedule a time for the repairs. They also said it should come in the mail the next day.

Nothing in the mail Saturday.  On Monday I was thinking I would have to call again, but out of the blue Melissa received a phone call as we were eating breakfast, from a Swiss number.  She was able to get the person on the line to speak in English, and to find out that it was a refrigerator repairman!  Melissa told him he could come over the same day, and a few hours later, when he showed up, the problem was fixed in about 30 minutes.  The thermostat need to be replaced.

I’m not sure how they got Melissa’s number, or why the letter we were told about never showed up, but the problem is solved, and so far the fridge has been working perfectly.  I’m just keeping my fingers crossed that the rental company won’t stick us with the repair bill.