As part of the apartment negotiation, the landlord decided to buy an AC for the main room.  How this room was inhabitable before an AC was installed is beyond me, but that’s my sissy western comforts talking.  At first they couldn’t install on Sundays because of the rules of the apartment, they weren’t available on Monday, so Tuesday was the day.

When they showed up, I could barely understand these two characters.  For one, my Chinese is two months stale and I’m still in Spanish mode, and two, they spoke so fast and with such an accent that it probably would have been impossible anyway.  So, I made phone calls as necessary.

But, the real reason I wanted to add this post is to describe the safety measures they adhered to.  Let me back up, in China, most apartments have single AC units per room.  While it’s not nearly as nice as central air-conditioning, it is nicer than the single units in the US.  In China, the AC units have the condenser and the blower separated.  The condenser sits outside on a platform and there’s an insulated tube that runs to the remote-controlled blower inside.  Well, the blower was easy enough, but I couldn’t see how they’d get the condenser into place.  The window, which you can push out and to the right, blocked access to the platform where the condenser had to be placed.

To my shock, one of the workers put on a shaggy chest harness, clipped a rusty caribeaner to the hinge of the window and stepped out ten floors above the street below.  What’s worse, he ended up sitting on the edge of the window while putting the condenser into place which was lowered from the roof by the other worker.  Now that window hinge is metal, about six inches long and maybe a half an inch wide.  In the end, of course, there were no accidents.

In the end, the cost of installation:  $20.