Our apartment building is very old. I have no idea how long it’s been standing here but it’s clear that the original wiring wasn’t designed to handle the number of electrical appliances and gadgets that are part of everyday life today even in China. We’ve only been here for four weeks but I’ve long since lost count of the number of times we’ve tripped the breaker.

That’s right. THE breaker. Until yesterday, there was only one of them for the entire apartment. Granted, it isn’t big. Just three little rooms plus the bathroom but there are way too many things in here that use electricity for one circuit to handle the demand.

There are wires and cords snaking all over the place. I haven’t begun to figure out what they’re all for or where they go. Some of the switches and plug-ins have obviously been added over the years as they’re simply shoved into rough holes in the wall and the wiring, rather than being inside the wall, is on the outside!

Last Saturday evening while Richard was in class, I started to smell something odd. It had that tell-tale hot wiring smell but I couldn’t locate the source. I’d had a shower and had left the heat lamps in the bathroom on to dry it out so I wondered if they were the problem. I mentioned it to Richard when he got home but by then, he couldn’t smell anything so we didn’t give it another thought until the following morning.

I don’t remember exactly what we were doing but the breaker tripped again and this time, when Richard went out to the landing at the top of the stairs to switch it on again, the smell was very strong and the circuit box was hot inside! There was also a flash when he flipped the switch. Definitely not a good sign!

Though it was her day off, Richard called Wendy, the girl from the school office who handles things to do with teacher apartments. She rounded up the landlord and they came over to take a look. By then, the circuit box had cooled off and the landlord couldn’t find anything wrong. Just be careful not to use too many electrical things at once was all that they could suggest! When we mentioned the situation to our supervising teacher, his response was “Well this is China. That’s just the way things are.”

It didn’t take long to determine that those answers simply wouldn’t do! On Tuesday evening I was blow drying my hair when the breaker tripped and we were plunged into darkness. A little later on, when Richard was in the shower and we had the heating unit in the bedroom turned on because the apartment is chilly in the evening, the breaker went for a second time. Grabbing our tiny flashlight, I made my way out to the hall to flip the switch. It was hot again and it smelled terrible so when we arrived at school yesterday morning, Richard explained to the office staff that we were living in a fire trap and that something had to be done about it.

At noon, we went off to enjoy a home cooked meal at one of my student’s grandmother’s place and when we got home, the guts of the circuit box had been changed. We now have a double breaker! It’s too early to know for sure if that will solve the problem but it’s been over 24 hours and we haven’t tripped it yet.

Now, if we could just get them to install fire extinguishers on the landings, we might feel even safer! Never mind. This is China; not quite third world anymore but definitely not what we’re used to either!