speaking of stoves, I saw a bug in my kitchen last night (ewww!) it ran inside the stove. So, I turned it on.

speaking of stoves, I saw a bug in my kitchen last night (ewww!) it ran inside the stove. So, I turned it on.

The way suicidal mice get into my apartment is by coming up the gas lines for the stove. I kick it a couple times before turning on the oven. And if Devi has been staring at it lately, I'll pull open the broiler drawer. Just in case.

Okay, I don't think you're dumb or anything, but did you set the stove to bake (or whatever your other settings are) *and* then pick a temperature like 350 or above?

Yeah, I tried doing both combinations - setting to bake then the temp and vice versa.

Is it only the oven that won't work, or is the stove top not heating, either?

And yep, which is why I'm both confuzzled and worried. Confuzzled because I would expect the whole thing to be dead if the oven doesn't work, and worried because that makes it sound like a major problem I won't be able to take care of without making a thing out of it.

Thanks for all the advice, though. I need to make some close friends in the appliance repair business (I got plumbing and heating and construction pretty well sussed, at least on an advice scale).

Why don't you just mention it to the landlord. Maybe there's a secret trick.

What about the actual heating element? The tubular thing in the bottom that should heat up? You might be able to replace that.

Confuzzled because I would expect the whole thing to be dead if the oven doesn't work

My oven will sometime not heat up at all because the pieces of metal under the oven have buildup on them. I've called maintanance and they've just come and hit the stuff off. (gas oven)

Why don't you just mention it to the landlord. Maybe there's a secret trick.

That's my first step if there's nothing obviously loose or half plugged in.

The first apartment DH and I lived in with no roommates was a 400 sq ft box in a still being renovated building in a bad neighborhood (very cheap). When we moved in, there was no stove and the water heater wasn't hooked up yet. After watching the landlord look extremely incompetent while connecting the gas to the water heater, I decided we didn't ned a stove. Lived there for 6 months cooking on an alcohol burning camp stove. Good times.

Lived there for 6 months cooking on an alcohol burning camp stove. Good times.

Last time I was hunting, some woman tried to get me to see a place which only had a hot plate and one of those dorm fridges. She also went on about how her current tenant was leaving because he was upset at her for coming in to his place (which I suspect was a room with a bathroom, and not a studio as advertised) unannounced. Needless to say, I begged off from even seeing the place. shudders

Who in the name of all that is holy (almost spelled wholly) when asked whether or not one paragraph of marketing copy looks good says, "I don't know. There may be some ideas and things I want to implement."