I found that what I thought was a request to have the water & sewer bill transferred to me hadn't gone through and the previous owner was still getting the bills. I sent him a check for last month's bill and after lunch today, Lisa and I walked down to City Hall and I paid the up-front $175 deposit to have the service moved. (I'll owe the previous owner a bit for the remainder between the last bill and today since the billing will be cut over tomorrow.)
Last night we went to Lowe's and bought a new washer/dryer on the last day of the sale they were running, also redeeming another one of the 10% coupons we have for Lowe's. Lisa has decided that she doesn't like a gas-fired clothes dryer, so we bought an electric, and we'll have to have the electrician out again to wire a 220V circuit to handle it. We told them not to hurry on the delivery because we still don't have the plumbing fixed (and probably won't for some time, maybe months). The apartment has a small combo washer/dryer unit, but without interior water (on which we can't even start until the underfloor joists are repaired since the pipes have to run through that area) we can't use the washer; however, Lisa has been using the dryer after doing the washing at a laundromat within walking distance, and it's only a minor issue.
While walking to the mini-market to get milk yesterday afternoon, the building contractor who will be fixing the floor joists happened to be driving by and he pulled off the road to say hello. He seemed a but surprised that we would walk to get our groceries rather than drive, but we seem to surprise lots of people that way. (It's less than 1 km away; that's nothing, and even though milk is more expensive at the mini-market than at the big grocery store, if we didn't have any other things to buy, the net cost is higher if we drive to the big store.) Anyway, he says that he's working on other projects and still expects to get to us in a couple of weeks, at which time he expects it to take 2-3 days to shore up and install new, stronger joists alongside the old cracked and notched ones. When he's done, I reckon the floor will be vastly stronger than it ever was and we can get serious about other repairs.