que pasa

... distant relatives are not as good as close neighbours.

Or in my case, landlady.

I had some problems recently with the apartment.  A few weeks ago, one of the faucets was leaking and I informed the landlady.  She came the next evening immediately to get somebody to fix it.  When that young guy couldn't do the job, she called up an older man (who happens to be her elementary school friend and lives in the same apartment building as me) to help.  I think she ended up staying for a couple of hours to see the thing done and she was most apologetic for hanging around the apartment at night.  But I was more than happy that she did get it fixed in the end.

Last weekend, the power in my apartment stopped.  It wasn't the circuit breaker (or whatever you call that thing that trips) in my apartment.  So I called the landlady again after I had called the local property management.  She called up the same elementary school classmate to take a look.  And she reassured me that he would help me and that I should not be frightened or worried.  He did manage to fix the problem after an hour (he told me to go buy a part to replace something at the mains outside leading to my apartment) and power came back on.  (Incidentally, this apartment building does not have its own property management, we are serviced by a local district property management company.  By the time the property management guy came, I didn't need his help anymore)

On Saturday morning, I found a pair of bright blue warm slippers and a down quilt in my apartment.  The landlady had them brought over by the cleaner (she recommended her cleaner to me, her cleaner has a set of my door key) so that I would be warm when the temperature drops.  I thought that was really sweet of her.

My landlady is really quite nice and I feel that she treats me like her daughter (because her daughter studied in Singapore before and we're about the same age).  I think the cleaner has also said some nice things about me, about how I keep her apartment clean, don't mess up the place, no wild parties and stuff like that.

I am very grateful that my landlady is nice enough to see that I am not having problems living in her apartment.  Not everyone gets that.