The lift died again yesterday. Halfway up, halfway down, nobody’s sure. The doors jammed, lights flickered, and poor Carmen from the third floor was stuck inside for nearly twenty minutes. By the time Manuel fetched the key to force it open she was shaking like a leaf.
It’s not the first time. Once a month, maybe more. Buttons stick, motor wheezes, the whole thing groans like an asthmatic donkey. The repair guy knows us by name now. He comes, pokes around with a screwdriver, shrugs, leaves a bill. We all split it, grumble, and wait for the next breakdown.
Every time, someone says we should replace the damn thing. Then the numbers get mentioned. Tens of thousands. Votes. Paperwork. Endless debates. Someone suggests “just taking the stairs” and gets stared at like a lunatic.
I keep thinking about sustainability in all this. WSB14 loved to talk about efficiency and systems that last. But in practice, half the city’s lifts are older than me, patched and coaxed along until they finally cough their last. Replacing them isn’t just expensive — it’s a bureaucratic swamp. Forms, meetings, signatures. By the time you’d finish, half the neighbours would have died of old age anyway.
Meanwhile, people like Carmen risk panic attacks every time they press the button.
Pepi, of course, had her say. “Better the lift breaks than my heater,” she muttered, which somehow turned the whole meeting into a row about heating bills again. Manuel blamed the paint colour (he always does). I suggested maybe we should be looking at long-term costs, energy efficiency ratings, new safety codes. Blank stares again. Someone passed around churros.
This is what “sustainable retrofitting” really looks like. Not clean diagrams from WSB14. Not a citywide strategy. Just a bunch of neighbours in a stairwell, arguing whether beige walls make you sadder than high heating bills, while Carmen sits pale in the corner still shaking.
Later I walked down Gran Via, still stewing. Counted four cranes, which means nothing, useless even numbers. Watched a kid press every button at a crossing just to annoy his mum. Thought about Carmen, still pale after her ordeal, and felt guilty I didn’t wait with her longer.
Buildings aren’t just walls and roofs. They’re lifts that either work or don’t. And when they don’t… well, Carmen’s still hauling shopping up three flights this morning while Pepi yelled at her to use a trolley. I was going to help but the scaffolding net outside had wrapped itself around a lamppost and I stood watching that instead.
