Thanks. He did come in and check the t-stat, it was wired properly, but apparantly there was a switch that was set on gas/oil, not on electric. We moved in last April, the unit was not checked before summer, and it was not checked before the winter months. Of course, we live in a dump, there is much wrong with this house, holes in the interior walls, bad patch job in the bedroom where they'd gotten access to the bathtub plumbing, and bad wiring in the kitchen (one of the overhead lights has a short in it). So we can say that my landlord, who is also my first cousin, is a slum lord. If we'd had any other choice (we were homeless, after both of us losing our jobs last year), we would have never moved in here. And if I were a landlord, I'd have never rented this house in this condition. If I won't live in it as a landlord, I won't rent it.