It's no
secret that I get singled out for harassment, whether it's at school, work, or
the home, and just as typically, it's a woman. In my last apartment building,
the woman on the first floor hated New York. They had been relocated from
Philly by her husband's law firm, and she walked around with the bombed out
air of someone who had been through a Blitzkrieg, which was weird for gorgeous
and affluent brownstone Brooklyn. They lived half a block from one of the
most beautiful parks in the world, Prospect Park. But she was pretty in an
average way and she had the demeanor of privilege about her, so I knew she'd be
trouble in the end.
And
so it was. Her bad attitude extended to their dog "Boo", a big surly
sheepdog, a total oxymoron for the breed. Soon after I arrived with my Mal
"Ted", a couple from Georgia was relocated by the husband's law
firm, too. They lived above me. They were young and nice. I often heard loud
footsteps during the day, and soon I found out why. She worked as a adoption
agent from home, and we became friendly when she knocked on my
door one afternoon for a cup of proverbial sugar. They loved my dog and his
temperament, but confided in me that the dog downstairs was an
"asshole". And so it was.
Before
long, the neighbor downstairs called me to say my footsteps were too loud on the
staircase. Then she called me to ask if I could pick up Ted's chain when we
came back from a walk. Of course it was fine that her and her children woke the building up every morning between 6-7 am with their boisterous sounds, which didn't
bother me at all. Privileged. Because she hated where she was, which was odd
enough given that they had a beautiful garden apartment in one of the most
desired locations in the world, she started lashing out.
If it wasn't
"noise" from others, it was garbage pick up. Then the apartment
conditions stressed her out. She called us looking to build a coalition of
complaints. Did I have a leaky faucet? Did I have this or that or that, trying
to suss out unequal attention or injustice that wasn't there. I paid a premium
for that apartment and its' location, as did the other tenants lawyers, and we
were the first generation to live in this private home, so it was fairly
pristine from any sort of live in damages.
But, since
I couldn't afford a place that had originally been budgeted for two salaries,
it was soon time to move. Before I left, the family downstairs was moving
back to Philly and the harassed woman I knew finally had a sense of calm about
her. Wow. Two whole states she had to move on a lawyer's salary. She later told
me that her Great Dane that came into their marriage had to be put down because
it was not trust worthy with their first newborn. Perhaps that was the reason
for her depression, but at the time it looked like the usual rich housewife
ennui and angst.
The first
time I saw my next Park Slope apartment, I took it on the spot. It was very
old and run down and it needed a lot of repairs, but it had great bone structure. I could turn this out, and
the price was better than my previous apartment. Since Ted and I were on our
own (well, I'm always pretty much on my own), we had to curb expenses and this
4th floor walk up would have to do. But something wasn't right. There was a
still tense quiet in the hallways that I usually felt in nursing homes, with
old people behind lace curtains watching me and my dog walk up and
down the stairs. It didn't feel like healthy people lived there. I would
find out why.
It was
aggressive from the start. A woman on the ground floor immediately stepped
right up to my face and wanted to know the amount I paid for my rent and why I
could "have" a dog. Uh oh. I know this. She turned out to be gay and
simply forward, later inviting me to surf with her, and her and her friends
soon moved out. Another woman also asked me about my rent and the dog in a way that
insinuated my looks "got" me the apartment, by pointedly looking me
up and down. I told them how the building manager lived on my old block and
knew my former landlord, but that didn't mollify their anger. It never does.
That was
nothing compared to what would happen next. As soon as the people downstairs
saw me, they tensed up. No "hellos" or greetings of any kind. Huh.
Must be Europeans or stressed out newcomers to the city. But the woman seriously
worried me, and of course I was right about her, as I always am. She had the
bugged out eyes of a either drug addict or someone who was a candidate for a
nervous breakdown. There was something very wrong with her and she knew I knew
it, because I was aghast at their bad manners every time I saw them in the
hallway.
Rather
than confront me directly, they waited. Soon enough, I would come home
from a 10-12 hour day to walk my dog, letters started appearing taped
to my door. Here we go. "I can hear every word you say", was
one creepy line. OK, so now I'm responsible for the buildings 115 year old wood
floors. Great. It was again with me and the dog in the hallway, fur on the
staircase that the super had to sweep up, or me not waking up fast enough for
her. They were building it up quick. Fuck. I needed this place to get back on
my feet.
Being the
person I am, I bought the people downstairs a noise reducer machine that made
ambient sound. Uh uh. It didn't "work" for her. Another note. I
should just return it. Huh. Do they know what being a neighbor means?
Apparently not. I bought another area rug for the bedroom to help absorb sound.
Nope. More notes. The woman was backed by her big Lurch of a husband who stood
behind her glaring at me silently and sometimes (even creepier) he had a smile
around his mouth as he looked at me. I'm sure that was my fault, too, along
with breathing. He was her only source of power, hence this petty
passive-aggressive shit.
They were
also sensitive complainer types. They routinely harassed the young couple who
did building chores like garbage duty and clean up, calling them at 10 in the
evening to change a light bulb. Ah. That was it. They hated New York, they
didn't belong here, and we were all going to pay the price for their anger.
I've been through this before.
It
escalated and the notes grew nastier. The manager did nothing, nor did the
other tenants. As I've documented before, this drove me to such lengths that I
began sleeping in my clothes so I could wake up quicker to prevent coming home
from a long day to another letter, or waking up before I was awake myself to
tend to him, lest they dare be disturbed. I broke my leg because I was half
asleep when I was walking Ted and not paying close attention to him, a fact
that I immediately called her up and told her about when I got back to my apartment after walking back from the ER on crutches (my first time). I did it
because I heard her whispering behind her door like a coward as I crawled up to
the 4th floor, without any neighborly assistance what so ever.
After I
had to completely alter my life because of that accident, the woman began
appearing in the hallway with a baby. Adoption? They looked fairly old for
parents. She never even looked pregnant to me, not that I paid much notice to
her or her husband. Maybe their drama was the result of some expensive and
complicated IVF process, common to affluent older white people. They constantly
had expensive packages mailed to them and they had pick up laundry service, so
I knew they could afford another home. Who knows? But I noticed her demeanor
was now servile and mincing at the mailboxes, when she used to defiantly ignore me
by her husband's side. Aha. Now she was vulnerable, just her and the baby.
Lucky for
her. I would have gotten into it with her, such was the rare amount of anger she
instilled in me. Her and her husband remain some of the cruelest, nastiest,
selfish, and most self-centered people I've ever met, and that includes the
batty neighbor next door who leaves a bathroom light on all night that shines
directly into my bedroom. Was the baby loud? She asked me one
time when we were in the foyer together. Did I hear them? Yes I did occasionally hear her, I said, but it
would never occur to me to complain about a baby crying because they can't help
it. Just like dogs.
