Fan blows, outside unit clicks, but doesn't turn on -- only at night?!

by Dunaway
(San Antonio, TX)

March 30, 2011

At the duplex we are renting, the technician has been out to service our central air conditioner unit multiple times. He has recently cleaned the coils, cleaned the points, fixed a Freon leak, filled the Freon, replaced the filter, and replaced the thermostat, and who knows what else.
During the day, our central air conditioner usually works fine; however, in the evening and at night (after about 7 pm) about 50% of the time we try to turn the central ac on, it won't turn on.

I set the thermostat to one degree cooler than the room temperature. The outside unit goes "thunk" and the blower inside turns on, blowing room-temperature air.

The outside unit goes "click" and nothing happen. 20 seconds later, it goes "click" again. This keeps happening for thirty minutes, an hour, all night if we let it! The clicks get louder but the central ac unit never turns on. We give up and go to bed hot.

The next morning, it is the same story and in the afternoon, the central ac unit is working fine. My landlord thinks I'm crazy and we fight every time I have to call him about this. HELP!!!