8 p.m. Neighbor kids were banging their floor/my ceiling. Not playing. Not walking. Banging. Per usual.
I yelled shut up.
Neighbors started fighting. I might have yelled shut the fuck up, although my favorite sayings are generally, “Be quiet,” “Stop it” and “Shut up.” I figure the kids hear enough cuss words from their parents.
(My favorite is how the dad always says, “This is BULLSHIT.” That may be the only thing we agree on.)
Either way, it was now past 8 p.m. and I have a very, very early morning. Oh and I pay a lot of money to not relax here.
And, the drama has been nonstop for hours (and is still ongoing). At this point it’s past 11 p.m.
Mom was on the phone with her friend in Pittsburgh when the fighting started above her room. The friend could hear the banshees. Mom went to the front door. She-Banshee was now on the phone with someone, talking VERY loudly about ME.
I think She-B thought Mom was me. Mom had the phone to her ear and I think the B thought Mom was recording. Since she said, “Go ahead and record.” Nay. Her friend caught every word though.
I snuck out and started recording. (That was an invitation.) She was hollering that I follow her outside all the time and look up there at her. She saw my foot and called me a dumb bitch and said some other related things.
She told her friend I yell shut the fuck up at them. Which … I’m pretty peaceful. You know I’m at wits’ end if/when it comes out.
And … maybe shut up? You got bigger problems than me, lady.
Unfortunately my recording cut off. I went back inside. And listened to more insanity through the ceiling.
I went in my room (ostensibly the kids’ room). I heard the bitch saying she’s going to “get” me. He-Banshee said “don’t worry about her.”
Lots more back and forth and then silence. Then mom calls me into her room again because she distinctly heard her say, “I’ll get them” and he again said, “Oh just forget about them.”
Again, you people have bigger problems than me. Please leave me out of it.
Then an argument erupted in the hallway. He was yelling about her taking or keeping his bag. I think he left for a while and came back and was looking for this bag. She had apparently gone through it.
I thought their evil plan to “Get me” was to lure me into the hallway. I’m perfectly aware that she might want to call the cops and say I’m harassing her.
You know, first of all when I go out in the hallway, it’s to prove to myself that it’s them. Since they tell the property director, the cops, security and even me that it isn’t them.
Second, since they bang their sliding glass door all day and night. I open and close mine to let them know I hear them. That ain’t following. That’s me saying, “Hey, if you can hear this, I can hear you.” The “shut up” is implied.
So, not following her. In fact, I like to use my porch because it’s generally the only place in this unit that’s quiet. If he’s not smoking pot and blasting rap music. At 8 a.m. on a Sunday.
Last Friday, a lady was across the lake and looking over here, mom told me. Mom sits on the porch every morning to get sun because it’s east-facing and that’s the only time we get sun.
The lady hear the yelling and came over quickly. She called up to mom, “Are you OK? I heard a woman screaming. Is something wrong?”
Mom said she was fine, thank you for asking.
Which was lovely, actually. Mom needed to see that we have caring, kind people here who would help you.
What I wish mom would have done was pointed upstairs.
I was working from home that day and losing my mind as the fighting escalated. I can’t call security or the cops during the day and I don’t even know that I could go up there. I don’t want to. They are violent. I don’t know if there’s a weapon up there. Anyone who can scream like that in front of their babies clearly isn’t rational.
That’s when I booked the hotel.
I almost wondered, hunh, what if they get it out of their system and I would have had a peaceful (and certainly cheaper) weekend.
Not so much.
I was so tired tonight but I’m wired now.
In any event, when they were yelling about the damn bag in the hallway, like I said I thought they wanted to lure me out. I was listening — not hard to hear those big mouths. But as it turns out another neighbor — sounded like a very nice lady — called out, “Other people live here, you know.”
I don’t know if they thought it was me. Too nice to be me.
Not too long after, I heard a woman knock on their door and say something. She sounded calm. Almost sounded like the lady cop who came after I called last time. Things went quiet … till now.
I think the guy left and came back. He came back bitching about his bag. Why did she go through his bag.
Our guess is she found something on him. Drugs. Condoms. Evidence of some sort. Proof that maybe some other woman finds it sexy when a man talks at top volume in her face. Or maybe proof that he found a quiet woman who doesn’t crawl up his ass and follow him from room to room, screaming.
In any event, it was awful.
I cranked up the AC and tried to turn up the TV. Mom is having her mini-stroke thingie. Overheated and hyperventilating. The stress is killing us both.
I read that sleep deprivation leads to obesity, heart disease, memory loss and otherwise shortens your lifespan. Five months of this and the fear in my heart that these idiots are coming after me is going to do me in.
I figure they fight in the parking garage, the woman smokes and there are always cigarette butts by my car, the fresh vomit in my spot Thursday night just as I arrived home from work and the missing/poor replacement of a radio antenna on my red car — this has to be a coincidence.
I’ve all but lost all my old friends from the last place. Everyone has been begging to come over. I’ve seen all their new places. They’ve all moved on to greater things. Not me. I’m paying more and living in fear and frustration.
Whether these people come pound on my ceiling or on my door or on my head — either way, it means I don’t sleep at night. Or get work done during the day — when they are going 10 rounds like they are right now.
I want to go check on my car but I am terrified they will hear the door (which was never put on properly, and it was readjusted slightly better last week but now the lock is jacked up now and you can hear me “breaking in” from 10 doors away) and think I’m trying to “follow” them.
So as usual, now is the time for “guess which room they will fight all night in” which varies. But it’s always punctuated with “man’s shoes clacking from one room to the next and woman’s heavy footsteps shuffling behind him to continue whatever discussion they can’t have in a lower tone of voice.
I emailed the property director right after the “dumb bitch” comment. I had no idea the night would be like this.
I need sleep so badly. But hotel rooms ain’t cheap. Especially when you pour (*mumble*) into luxury-apartment living.
I know I need to move but why do I have to be the one to go when everyone else agrees that it’s THEM?!?!
It’s 11:33 p.m. I hear banging sliding glass doors and two voices. I heard a kid screaming a couple times. Not that they seem to believe in soothing or, I dunno, toning it down a notch.
If I think I have it bad, imagine that one-year-old’s eardrums.
Not my circus. But definitely my monkeys.
