I took today off. Around 9:45am I went outside, to the garage, to get my bike, which I planned to ride up to Anton’s to get breakfast. The garage door would not open.

If this had happened at 7:45am, when I was on my way to work, I would’ve been furious. So yes, it’s probably a very good thing I had the day off. But interfering with my breakfast is not a good idea.

It’s a two car garage, so I opened the other door. We don’t use this door because parked behind it is an old Mercedes Benz that our landlady hasn’t moved in two or three years. Getting in and out of there is awkward. But I got my bike, got breakfast, and no one got hurt.

But, says I, that door needs to open! So I investigated the situation. These doors have cables that go up the side of the door to pulleys attached to the frame. There is also a cable that loops through another pulley, which is attached to a long spring. This spring is supposed to be hooked to something at the back end of the door frame. When you close the door, the spring stretches out. When you open the door, the spring retracts, making it easier to lift the door. The hook at the back of the spring was gone. The end of the spring looked old and rusted and it looks like the hook part just broke off. The rest of the spring isn’t looking very good either.

My thought was to get a heavy S hook, hook one end into the spring, and hook the other end to the anchor at the back of the frame. Seems reasonable. So I biked to the hardware store on Central and bought a 3″ hook with a working load of 145 pounds. I hoped it wouldn’t snap. When I got back to the garage I had to move a lot of the landlady’s junk out of the way. And then I found out the hook I bought was too thick, and wouldn’t fit between the coils of the spring. I suppose I could go back and try to exchange it for a smaller one. Maybe someday I’ll do that.

In the meantime I thought I’d rig something with some rusty wire I found hanging around. If, at this point, you’re shaking you’re head, I do not blame you. I had to lift the door so that I could get the spring back toward the anchor. That door is very heavy. Very. Heavy. I got the wire in place. I adjusted the cables. I went outside and tried to close the door. Slowly. It got about halfway down and then crash something broke. I lifted the door open again and found that, big surprise, the rusty wire had just snapped. Back to square one.

My current plan is to notify our absentee landlady with our next rent check. I know she won’t do anything, but I was raised to follow procedure even if you know it’s pointless. Meanwhile, I’ll be trying to pass my bikes in and out of the garage through the narrow space between the one remaining working garage door and the abandoned car. I am actually more worried about dinging my bikes than the car. When the time comes that we need to move out, (and the current plan is roughly June,) I’ll lift that door open one last time and we’ll clear everything out.

If you are the kind of person who likes to keep track of the number of doors that do not function properly in an apartment, this new one brings the total to four.