Monday, April 23, 2007

Going Up ? ? ? ?

While in Vancouver one of my pastimes is attending Realtor Open Houses in the neighbourhood. "drf" and I have a tiny strata (condo) in The West End, but feel like a larger unit may be in order when we are living here on a full time basis. Two adults and one four-legged child may be quite cramped in the current "cozy" digs.

This past weekend I had my route all planned out to attempt to view 6 separate units in the obligatory 2:00 - 4:00 pm time period, with the last one actually open from 4:00 - 5:00 pm. This last unit was the second unit to be viewed in the same building - different floor and different floor plan. All was going quite well until the last unit viewing . . . .

The perky and bubbly Realtor-lady arrived a few minutes late and there were obviously others who had the same idea I had: Hit both units at about 4:00 pm to save time/travel, etc. So, the agent takes us all into the lobby to catch the elevator to the 6th floor. During the afternoon someone was moving into the building so one of the elevators had been utilized for that purpose. Since there were so many of us - 13 including the agent - the concierge allowed us to enter the "moving elevator" to facilitate us all getting upstairs quickly. BIG MISTAKE !! Bubbly agent waves her security key fob over the elevator control and pushes the button for #6. Elevator proceeds up and promptly jerks to a dead stop, with the indicator light reading "2". Long story short: 30 minutes later we finally depart the cramped elevator after becoming much more familiar with each other than any of us had planned on, I'm sure. At least now I have no qualms about possibly having claustrophobia - If it didn't affect me then, I doubt it ever will. (Unlike one woman who was having issues, poor thing!) Luckily, the building I was previewing was right next door to a Vancouver fire station. Even more lucky was we got stuck between floors and the hunky firefighters had to heave us out of the elevator . . . Yuuummmm!!









(If you're interested, we all opted to walk up the four flights of stairs rather than wait for the other elevator!)







PS: The unit and building were quite nice, BTW, with the exception of the elevator issues . . . .


3 comments:

Canada Calling said...

Great story!! I'm afraid I would have been the woman with issues on the stalled lift. I could see it all play out in my mind. I would have clawed opened the top of the elevator like a tin can to get out.

Daniel wbc said...

yikes! This is why I try not to take elevators; I'm afraid I would not have dealt with it well. For me, even the hunky firefighter would not have been worth it. (And that's saying something!)

I appreciate your silver-lining attitude, though. :-)

West End Bob said...

CC:

'Ya know, we looked at the top of the elevator, and it was not obvious that there was an escape potential there. Rather disconcerting I might add.

Daniel:

Trust me, the firefighters would have put the anxiety completely out of your mind!