Friends and Neighbors and Other People's Lives
Those who follow my Facebook posts and read with regularity know that every once in a while I will have made a reference to my neighbors in the apartment building in which I live. Honestly, in the many years that I have now lived her, there is little to complain about living in this building. It is populated by mostly older people (as in those who are well past their retirement age), most if not all are mindful and silent, and have made living here, for the most part, pleasant. There are few if any younger people here, and I'm happy to know that there are a few older women who live here who I consider to be my friend. And that's a good thing, which one cannot imagine doing in this day and age to have an actual friend outside of an academic setting where one is free to do and say and feel freely rather than the nonsense that has become the world that we live in now. But that's another blog of course... If you have never had a terrible neighbor to deal with, there is nothing worse. When one lives in an apartment building setting, having a good neighbor is a wonderful thing in which to have. Good neighbors can be helpful assets who are willing to do small things for you, like collect the mail or sign for packages when you are gone for short spells. When you have a bad neighbor, nothing but nothing can be more annoying. Even the most easy going of people can be affected by annoying neighbors; and, I became one of the targets of said annoying neighbors.
My first annoying neighbor was the woman who lived diagonally from me on the third floor. Within the first few days of my moving into the building (in the spring of 2001), I stepped out onto my back patio to check out a strange occurrence. A pine tree which was planted directly below me and was bent at a rather drastic 45 degree angle had at last, after many years in this strange position, been blown over by the harsh winds from a rainstorm the night before. I came out to inspect what may or may not have been on my patio for a clean up, but saw little to none to be had. When I glanced to my right, I saw an older woman also on her third floor patio who must have come out for the same purpose. I said hello to her, when she looked up and we made eye contact, she scowled and said to me "You didn't say hello to me the first time I saw you, you keep to yourself ma'am." I said "I'm sorry, I don't remember seeing you before this minute." She turned her back on me and went back inside her apartment. Needless to say, I was a bit confused at to what just happened. I found out later that the woman in question is quite a miserable, rotten human being who hates just about anyone and anything who crosses her path. She stayed here for seven years and never said much of anything to me, save for the fact when I appeared before her and others, she informed the other stranger(s) that I was the horrible asshole who never said hello to her. The last time I saw her and she informed her companions that I was the horrible asshole who never said hello to her, I gave her The Finger, leaned in four inches from her face, and shouted obscenities and threats not to bother me again. She laughed at me and said "You see what I mean?" to the other two. But they were laughing with me rather than with her.
My second annoying neighbor was the thorn in my side for a long time. Sometime in 2006, she moved into the apartment on the second floor just beneath me. We did not interact at all until one faithful day that summer. I returned from a day out and observed a potted plant on my back patio. Thinking it was a bit on the dry side, I filled a bucket full of water, watered the plant with an appropriate amount of water, then dumped the remainder of the water over the side. About an hour later, I get a knock on my door and encountered my downstairs neighbor. She had short, steel grey hair, eyeglasses whose lenses looked to be the thickness of a Coke bottle bottom, and was bent over a bit. I inquired as to her errand, she said she was angry with me because I had dumped water on her back porch. I said I was sorry, I asked if I got any water on her because I did not hear anyone or anything of distress beneath me. By her facial expression and tone of voice, I got the impression that she was very angry with me, yet at the same time not quite cognizant of her surroundings, yet at the same time sensing the sense of entitlement that is prominent among the elderly. People have often times compared dealing with older people to dealing with young children. They are similar, no question : both are self centered, demand that they come first and that they are right, and they refuse to listen to reason. Children, however, can be dismissed to go outside or to their rooms, when you get tired of them you can always take a break from each other. With older people, a part of us feels that we have to be polite because this person is, after all, an adult rather than a little kid who doesn't know any better than this or that. I stopped, however, feeling this way when she then presented me with something. After threatening me with some empty threats, she presented me with a newly purchased watering can. I looked this with a questioning look, and then said "Well, no one's ever given me a gift because they don't like me before, but I guess there really is a first time for everything. Bye." As I was about to close the door on her, she put out her hand and stopped me from closing the door. "And I don't mind telling you that I don't like the company that you keep!" I said "Pardon me?" "Last night a man came in here!" "Is that right?" "I heard you up here! That's disgusting the things that you do!" With this, I leaned into her and assumed Cop with her. I got three inches from her face and said "Listen lady, I don't know where you get this idea based on my dumping water on your back porch. And second, it's none of your godamned business who comes in and out of my house! Go fuck yourself!" And slammed the door on her. She then went back to her apartment and covered the cement and metal railings and floor of her patio with towels and bathmats in case I was going to get vindictive and rain red Kool-Aid on her. The towels and bathmats remained for weeks / months, and so began her smear campaign to ruin my street cred as a foul mouthed Jezebel.
She and I would have a few more encounters here and there in passing. As time went on, she kept bending over further and further until she was practically in half. Many who knew her said that she should not be here, as she slowly but surely began to decline in terms of her health both physically and mentally. I tried being approachable and to know that since we have no choice but to live side by side, I was willing to be a good neighbor. I tried saying hello to her or saying that we could be reasonable and reach a compromise. For example, according to another neighbor of mine, one of her next door neighbors had recently purchased an upright piano that she was playing into the wee hours of the night. That neighbor approached the other and asked her not to practice the piano past a certain hour of the day, and that neighbor was even reasonable enough to move the piano to another location in the house so that its noise would not be heard by the neighbor on the other side of the wall. Not all neighbors, as I have experienced, unfortunately, are not that reasonable. Some will go further as to ask their landlord to help in their quest; and, when some are approached by the landlord to do or stop doing something, they usually comply. I never wanted to involve the landlord, let alone anything that would take the other person to court because that's wasted time and energy. But we ended up having a few encounters where she would scream at me, then I would turn into Cop and shout at her three inches from her face and my finger in a baton before her, then she would collapse into tears and cry about how I was so mean to talk to her like that. Then come charging like a panther back at me. So I wouldn't feel guilty about it by any means, this tactic has probably worked with others since she was about two years old to get the things she wants with others.
Last Friday, according to Miss Sally (one of my likable neighbors), she had some kind of accident. Miss Sally asked me if she had died, I said I had no idea since I was out on Friday night. She said someone had picked up her mail the day before, left it taped to her front door and left. When the same neighbor came to put the next day's mail on her door once again, they found that the previous day's mail had not been collected. As it would take my bad neighbor a full ten minutes to open a door thanks to her weakened condition, they apparently found her on the floor of her apartment. An ambulance was called and she was taken away to a hospital where she resides as of this writing. I hope that she will not return to my building, not just for self centered reasons but in the hopes that she will live in a facility where others can care for her since she is (and hasn't been for a long time) no longer capable of taking care of herself. Many had been saying this about her for a while now, that she should not be living by herself and should be in a facility with caregivers, but she had refused for a long time. I realized over time that she was, in fact, all alone. She never married or had children, and apparently she didn't have any family or friends who would regularly come and see her. She is and was, I realize, rather sad. But she refused to accept certain things and would rather live at the kindness of strangers until she was no longer cognizant and became paranoid and demented in the isolation of old age.
I am not a harsh person, not by any means, but some become more angry and crotchety as they age rather than good tempered. About ten years ago, I found an older woman who fell down in one of the passageways in the basement and broke her hip. I called the paramedics for her, then paid her a visit in the hospital the day after, and weeks later, when she was in the nursing home. She was an older woman, we didn't know each other, and since I didn't know if she had any friends who would come to see her, I didn't want her to be in that place all alone thinking that others didn't care enough about her for a visit. Living other people's lives is hard.
My first annoying neighbor was the woman who lived diagonally from me on the third floor. Within the first few days of my moving into the building (in the spring of 2001), I stepped out onto my back patio to check out a strange occurrence. A pine tree which was planted directly below me and was bent at a rather drastic 45 degree angle had at last, after many years in this strange position, been blown over by the harsh winds from a rainstorm the night before. I came out to inspect what may or may not have been on my patio for a clean up, but saw little to none to be had. When I glanced to my right, I saw an older woman also on her third floor patio who must have come out for the same purpose. I said hello to her, when she looked up and we made eye contact, she scowled and said to me "You didn't say hello to me the first time I saw you, you keep to yourself ma'am." I said "I'm sorry, I don't remember seeing you before this minute." She turned her back on me and went back inside her apartment. Needless to say, I was a bit confused at to what just happened. I found out later that the woman in question is quite a miserable, rotten human being who hates just about anyone and anything who crosses her path. She stayed here for seven years and never said much of anything to me, save for the fact when I appeared before her and others, she informed the other stranger(s) that I was the horrible asshole who never said hello to her. The last time I saw her and she informed her companions that I was the horrible asshole who never said hello to her, I gave her The Finger, leaned in four inches from her face, and shouted obscenities and threats not to bother me again. She laughed at me and said "You see what I mean?" to the other two. But they were laughing with me rather than with her.
My second annoying neighbor was the thorn in my side for a long time. Sometime in 2006, she moved into the apartment on the second floor just beneath me. We did not interact at all until one faithful day that summer. I returned from a day out and observed a potted plant on my back patio. Thinking it was a bit on the dry side, I filled a bucket full of water, watered the plant with an appropriate amount of water, then dumped the remainder of the water over the side. About an hour later, I get a knock on my door and encountered my downstairs neighbor. She had short, steel grey hair, eyeglasses whose lenses looked to be the thickness of a Coke bottle bottom, and was bent over a bit. I inquired as to her errand, she said she was angry with me because I had dumped water on her back porch. I said I was sorry, I asked if I got any water on her because I did not hear anyone or anything of distress beneath me. By her facial expression and tone of voice, I got the impression that she was very angry with me, yet at the same time not quite cognizant of her surroundings, yet at the same time sensing the sense of entitlement that is prominent among the elderly. People have often times compared dealing with older people to dealing with young children. They are similar, no question : both are self centered, demand that they come first and that they are right, and they refuse to listen to reason. Children, however, can be dismissed to go outside or to their rooms, when you get tired of them you can always take a break from each other. With older people, a part of us feels that we have to be polite because this person is, after all, an adult rather than a little kid who doesn't know any better than this or that. I stopped, however, feeling this way when she then presented me with something. After threatening me with some empty threats, she presented me with a newly purchased watering can. I looked this with a questioning look, and then said "Well, no one's ever given me a gift because they don't like me before, but I guess there really is a first time for everything. Bye." As I was about to close the door on her, she put out her hand and stopped me from closing the door. "And I don't mind telling you that I don't like the company that you keep!" I said "Pardon me?" "Last night a man came in here!" "Is that right?" "I heard you up here! That's disgusting the things that you do!" With this, I leaned into her and assumed Cop with her. I got three inches from her face and said "Listen lady, I don't know where you get this idea based on my dumping water on your back porch. And second, it's none of your godamned business who comes in and out of my house! Go fuck yourself!" And slammed the door on her. She then went back to her apartment and covered the cement and metal railings and floor of her patio with towels and bathmats in case I was going to get vindictive and rain red Kool-Aid on her. The towels and bathmats remained for weeks / months, and so began her smear campaign to ruin my street cred as a foul mouthed Jezebel.
She and I would have a few more encounters here and there in passing. As time went on, she kept bending over further and further until she was practically in half. Many who knew her said that she should not be here, as she slowly but surely began to decline in terms of her health both physically and mentally. I tried being approachable and to know that since we have no choice but to live side by side, I was willing to be a good neighbor. I tried saying hello to her or saying that we could be reasonable and reach a compromise. For example, according to another neighbor of mine, one of her next door neighbors had recently purchased an upright piano that she was playing into the wee hours of the night. That neighbor approached the other and asked her not to practice the piano past a certain hour of the day, and that neighbor was even reasonable enough to move the piano to another location in the house so that its noise would not be heard by the neighbor on the other side of the wall. Not all neighbors, as I have experienced, unfortunately, are not that reasonable. Some will go further as to ask their landlord to help in their quest; and, when some are approached by the landlord to do or stop doing something, they usually comply. I never wanted to involve the landlord, let alone anything that would take the other person to court because that's wasted time and energy. But we ended up having a few encounters where she would scream at me, then I would turn into Cop and shout at her three inches from her face and my finger in a baton before her, then she would collapse into tears and cry about how I was so mean to talk to her like that. Then come charging like a panther back at me. So I wouldn't feel guilty about it by any means, this tactic has probably worked with others since she was about two years old to get the things she wants with others.
Last Friday, according to Miss Sally (one of my likable neighbors), she had some kind of accident. Miss Sally asked me if she had died, I said I had no idea since I was out on Friday night. She said someone had picked up her mail the day before, left it taped to her front door and left. When the same neighbor came to put the next day's mail on her door once again, they found that the previous day's mail had not been collected. As it would take my bad neighbor a full ten minutes to open a door thanks to her weakened condition, they apparently found her on the floor of her apartment. An ambulance was called and she was taken away to a hospital where she resides as of this writing. I hope that she will not return to my building, not just for self centered reasons but in the hopes that she will live in a facility where others can care for her since she is (and hasn't been for a long time) no longer capable of taking care of herself. Many had been saying this about her for a while now, that she should not be living by herself and should be in a facility with caregivers, but she had refused for a long time. I realized over time that she was, in fact, all alone. She never married or had children, and apparently she didn't have any family or friends who would regularly come and see her. She is and was, I realize, rather sad. But she refused to accept certain things and would rather live at the kindness of strangers until she was no longer cognizant and became paranoid and demented in the isolation of old age.
I am not a harsh person, not by any means, but some become more angry and crotchety as they age rather than good tempered. About ten years ago, I found an older woman who fell down in one of the passageways in the basement and broke her hip. I called the paramedics for her, then paid her a visit in the hospital the day after, and weeks later, when she was in the nursing home. She was an older woman, we didn't know each other, and since I didn't know if she had any friends who would come to see her, I didn't want her to be in that place all alone thinking that others didn't care enough about her for a visit. Living other people's lives is hard.
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