finally...

[thanate]

After spending all morning replacing parts in the old heater, yet another new person showed up (with more english, but a rather tacky sense of humor) to assist in replacing it entirely. So I now have a new, state-of-the-art hotel room heater, with a digital thermostat, and sleek plastic ergonomic cover. (well, curved, anyway) But they had to show me how to work the built in circuit breaker in the plug, and made me keep the space heater for another day just in case.