Tuesday, October 21, 2008

I am Clearly NOT the Crazy One Here...

Okay, so let's start out by telling you a bit about my apartment.
I moved here a little over a year ago, and as a general rule, I never see any of my neighbours. This is what I know of them: I live on the end of the hallway, when I look out the door, to my left is the outside. To my right lives a 30 or 40-something single guy, who is never home, with the exception of mid last school when he was busy building something inside there. Across from him is an old man. He has a lot of stuff in his apartment, like he has lived there for years - I know this because sometimes he leaves his door propped open so I can see inside. Beside him on my right is the stairwell, and beside him but across from me is a woman. From what I've seen of her, she appears to be in her late 20s or early 3os. She's got lotsa tattoos and I've seen her in the hallway not wearing any shoes. BUT, the most I've seen of her is when she's been bitching out people who come door to door in the apartment, including the nice old ladies who came around last year to register us to vote.
So, a few weeks ago, I go to leave my apartment to go to placement for an evening shift, I see this note stuck on my door:


So I am a little bit miffed. I feel guilty, but also angry because I do not slam my door, and feel violated by this note. Not to mention smirking at the use of the word "reframe" instead of "refrain."
I took it down, threw it inside, and went to placement. When I get home that night, this note is folded up and left in front of my door:My response is something along the lines of WTF. I highly doubt that either of these notes were from the guy beside me or the old man across from him. I really really think they were both left by the woman across the hall.
So what do I do? I write a disgustingly nice note back apologizing and asking what's with the two notes, leave it in the hall.... and it is promptly ignored by my neighbours for days until it is cleaned up by the landlords.
Here are my issues with this:
1) Is this not a little crazy? Maybe my neighbour has some sort of mental issues?
2) If it is not from one person, are my neighbours ganging up on me?
3) I am not even slamming the door! It makes me feel like showing her/them what door slamming really sounds like.
4) Seriosuly!? I have been a pretty good neighbour. I am quiet, I barely even have people over, I have never had a party here, I don't play music loudly - unlike other people in the building.
5) Really, putting up with things is part of living in a building full of people, either suck it up or find your own place.

Any thoughts?

6 comments:

Jay said...

Easy for me to say, but don't take it personally. You don't know who it came from and whether your neighbours have also gotten a note.

Continue to close your door quietly (probably like you're already doing). If the person is still having issues, he or she will make an attempt to contact you in person. They'd probably be confrontational, but you can apologetically say that you would have attempted to speak to said person earlier, but no name was left on the note.

The source of the banging may be coming from another source and it should be easy to determine that the problem is coming from somewhere else if you investigate together.

Good luck.

LenoreNeverM♡re said...

...quite strange???
Perhaps bake a pie & start communication & explain your innocence ;)
The story could be worst... Thank God it's not dear! Peace!!

vintagebird said...

Um, please reframe. Thanks.

AEH said...

Perhaps you can close your door quietly while saying very loudly "I'M CLOSING MY DOOR NOW. I HOPE IT'S QUIET ENOUGH!"

That might work. hehe.

Christy Lou Who said...

send it to http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/

that first one is begging to be featured on PAN.

Anonymous said...

Why are these note-leavers illiterate? My roommates and I have experienced a couple in our time at our current place. They're all from this CRAZY woman upstairs. The most laughable? Once, when a bunch of my friends were over (bunch = 8 or so?), we were all sitting out on my porch (MY porch, not her porch), on a Saturday night, around 9PM, talking, having a couple of beers. NOT being loud or crazy. It started to rain, so we all ran inside and as we were coming in the door, she was standing on the ledge of the steps, hand on her hip GLARING at us! Didn't say a word, and had never asked us to quiet down (if we were being loud, which I know we weren't). She's left us a couple of notes, too, that are always misspelled and sometimes just don't make any sense. I'm sure you're a great neighbor!