My name is Dylan, I’m 29, and I rent a small one-bedroom apartment in Chicago. Like most renters here, I’ve gotten used to a few quirks in older buildings — creaky floors, ancient appliances, and heating systems that seem to have personalities of their own.
But my radiator situation has officially reached the point where it feels less like a heating system and more like a mysterious weekly event.
The radiator in my living room only works sometimes.
And by sometimes, I mean very specifically on what feels like random days of the week.
Last winter I noticed the pattern.
Some days the radiator blasts heat like it’s trying to recreate the inside of a sauna.
Other days it’s completely silent, leaving the apartment cold enough that I’m sitting on the couch wearing a hoodie and two blankets.
After paying attention for a while, I started noticing something strange.
The radiator almost always works on Tuesdays.
Not every Tuesday.
But weirdly often.
And it almost never works on weekends.
At one point I jokingly told a friend that my apartment heat only runs on “odd Tuesdays.”
Unfortunately, that joke has turned out to be suspiciously accurate.
Over the past year I’ve submitted multiple maintenance requests asking the landlord to check the radiator.
Every time the response is the same.
“We’ll look into it.”
Sometimes a maintenance guy shows up, taps the radiator with a wrench, says something like “these old systems are quirky,” and then leaves.
Nothing actually changes.
Then last week my landlord sent out an email to all tenants.
Due to “rising costs and inflation,” rent for my unit would be increasing by $350 per month when my lease renews.
Naturally, this felt like the perfect moment to bring up the radiator again.
I emailed back politely and asked if the heating system could be fixed before the rent increase went into effect.
His reply?
“The radiator appears to be functioning intermittently, which is typical for older steam systems.”
Intermittently.
That’s one way to describe a heating system that behaves like it’s following a mysterious calendar schedule.
Last night the temperature dropped into the 30s, and sure enough the radiator was completely silent.
But this morning — Tuesday — it suddenly roared back to life like nothing had ever been wrong.
So now I’m sitting here enjoying a warm apartment for what will probably be the next several hours before the radiator returns to its unpredictable routine.
Meanwhile my landlord is raising rent by hundreds of dollars while the heating system operates like it’s controlled by a part-time ghost.
At this point I’m genuinely tempted to ask him if the rent increase also means we’re upgrading from odd-Tuesday heating to a full weekly schedule.
Because if I’m paying an extra $350 a month, it would be nice to know the radiator might eventually start working on Wednesdays too.
