With Thanksgiving approaching, the bottom burner element in our twenty-year-old oven gave out. It took us a while to diagnose the problem. The symptoms were the oven taking much longer to come up to full heat, except when in broil mode (top burner only), and then the way my last banana bread baked, burning at the top and staying pudding-y at the bottom.
Fortunately, these things are fairly standard. B removed the part this morning. A parts store on San Pablo and russell in Berkeley had the perfectd fit for only about $35. I just picked it up. Now we need to ask the landlords to come over and install it.