Changing a fuse in Buenos Aires

[Ries]

my standard procedure with this sort of thing is- establish the fact that you (I) are an idiot to begin with, and they usually will be helpful. I always apologize for my horrendous castellano first thing, then proceed to plow into it, and the guys at the hardware stores or elsewhere are usually amused enough to take pity on me and help me figure out my 100 year old argentine hardware problem.
And, believe me, I have had a LOT of em.

My place was built in 1905.

 

[clooz]

Assuming that you can not find someone in your building tell you which fuses in the box are for your apartment, so you can replace them with new ones.... you are going to have to either call an electrician, or you can take out the fuses from the box and probably cut the power to the other apartments in order to find out which fuses are yours. So here's how I would do this.

Get a friend to wait in your apartment on a cell phone. Turn ON the all the light switches there. Go down to the fuse box. Get your friend on the phone. Pull TWO of the fuses from the box; swap them; screw them back in. If the lights came on in your apartment, you know it's one of the two you swapped. If you can see a small spark when you screw one in, that's the one that's hot and working now. If the lights do not come on try TWO OTHER fuses. Keep going till the lights come on. Keeping track of which fuses you have swapped will minimize the number of other apartments that you cut power to. With luck only one other apartment will have it's power cut!