Telling landlord hot water is broken: Prior attempts to fix the problem

🇯🇵 [すみません] does a lot of jobs in real life: getting attention, apologizing lightly, or softening a request. Here it works naturally as "excuse me" when starting a conversation with a landlord or neighbor.

🇯🇵 [大家さん] usually means the owner or manager of a small rental property, the person tenants actually talk to about problems like hot water. In conversation, people often address them directly as [大家さん], like saying "landlord" as a title.

💬 [出ない] literally means "doesn't come out," and with water, gas, or hot water that's the normal way to say something isn't working. You can reuse it with other utilities too, like [水が出ない] or [お湯が出ない]

💬 [出ない] literally means "doesn't come out," and with water, gas, or hot water that's the normal way to say something isn't working. [んです] softens it and makes it sound like you're explaining a problem, not just stating a fact.

🇯🇵 [あら] is a mild, often gentle-sounding reaction like "oh?" or "oh dear." You'll hear it more from older speakers and women in dramas or everyday chat than in neutral textbook Japanese.

💬 [そうなの？] is an informal way to react to new information: literally "is that so?" You can swap in politeness by saying [そうなんですか？] when talking to someone you don't know well.

💬 [そうなの？] is an informal way to react to new information: literally "is that so?" You can make it more polite as [そうなんですか？] for a landlord, coworker, or stranger.

💬 [いつから？] means "since when?" because [から] marks the starting point. You'll also see the same pattern with answers like [今朝から] or [昨日から].