Certain disadvantages in At the foot of the hill

We’ve really enjoyed our third floor apartment here on the lake. It will be three years since we moved in just before Thanksgiving. Our view is fantastic, although the rent is higher than it is for other units in the building… Maintenance requests sometimes are postponed until they are forgotten, but in the last couple of weeks we have received a new window replacing the steamed over one in our bedroom that was promised when we moved in. We also requested repairs to the floor of our deck at that time and were surprised when they showed up one day with a new redwood board and replaced the cracked one. A new water heater was installed, as they are replacing all the original ones. (The building is 15 years old.)

And now…now! The lone elevator is being overhauled. They say it will be out of service for approximately two weeks. I can go down stairs, slowly and sometimes painfully, but going up is a whole other story. They are trying to be as accommodating as possible, having installed a chair lift and placed an attendant on call to help us carry stuff and operate the lift. I have had to go down every day and am not liking either alternative a whole lot. I tried the lift once and got off at second floor and walked the rest of the way. I can do that, but I need two hands…one for my cane and one to hold on to the rail. Guess I’ll have to use some kind of bag that I can carry on my arm or shoulder if I need to carry something.
It is better to get this creaky old elevator fixed now, though, before it breaks down…the one in another building did just that a few months ago and it took six weeks to get it repaired. I am studying my schedule to see if I can scale down trips out of my apartment for next week.