Cooking in a new apartment

When you've just moved into a new apartment, there's always one thing you should do first. Check to see that everything works. I learned this the hard way.

I decided to ceremonially prepare dinner my first night of living at the new place with my favorite recipe. I turned on the oven, and set about making dinner.
Smoke starts filling the apartment. Billowing from the stove. I turn the above the stove vent on, but to no avail. Why? Because there actually isn't a vent in the vent hood. Or a fan. There's a filter, but it's not hooked up to anything. It's a bit like discovering that your entire life is the part of some massive experiment where you're recorded 24/7 and the set designer forgot to make some of the parts of the set functional. Okay, it's a reeeaalllllly small bit like that.

Three smoke alarms later, I eventually get the situation under control. The culprit? A massive amount of... goop on the oven. A deep maroon and sticky puddle that might have been an attempt at making napalm. I could have used oven cleaner on it, but I don't have oven cleaner. I could have used salt, but I don't have that either. My pantry only contains 2 things, neither of which can make a meal, even if you combine them. I could have either made the spill spicier, or smell like Chinese takeaway.

So far this previous tenant is shaping up to be quite the character. It's like having a ghost in the apartment. They're gone but their spirit remains, and it exists solely to bother me.