I may not have mentioned this in my lamenting over losing my 9-5 job, but I do have a part-time job in addition to any acting gigs I can snag. I work as a promoter for different Broadway and Off-Broadway shows. Some people call it a "ticket barker" but I basically hand out flyers/coupons advertising different shows and I spend a lot of time in Times Square (*shudder*) and around tourists. It's not the most glamorous job in the world, but it gets me by. I mention this because this week I was starting to freak out a little (in case you hadn't noticed) that my current situation was beginning to mirror my situation about 4 years ago when I was living in my miracle studio apartment. This small feeling of despair began when I found roaches inside my coffee maker one morning last week before work. It was, indeed, a boo day.
Living Away From Home On My Own
The Neighbor From Hell Begets the Year From Hell
A month or so went by and I hadn't heard much from Psycho 5F and I was starting to get settled into my new place and to get the hang of my new job. I was miserable at work, however. It was awful. I started getting ill all the time and was horribly depressed (sound familiar?) I was riddled with self-doubt, anxiety, and paranoia. It was bad, you guys. I would come home at night, play with my ferrets, watch TV, and sometimes boyfriend would come over but then I would go to bed and sleep forever. I would wake up with just enough time to get ready, make sure the ferrets were fed/watered, and get to work by the skin of my teeth. Every Day. My ferrets and Boyfriend were literally the only constant sources of joy and hope in my life. They were the reasons I kept trying. They were my reasons for getting out of bed in the morning and facing the day. But, I was still really stressed out and miserable most of the time. Something had to give.
I was living in my apartment for nearly two months and in that time, I had 4 unpleasant encounters with Psycho 5F. After the incident with the Super's wife, I didn't hear from 5F for a little while and thought she'd given up. Boy was I wrong.
May 2008:
Boyfriend and I were watching movies all night on my ancient tube TV with crappy speakers. I only say this because I want to make it perfectly clear that I did not own surround sound. Just a crappy old tube TV. I don't remember what we were watching, but by 3AM we were going to call it a night when a really foul smell we'd been noticing got much worse. We couldn't pinpoint the source, but we were certain that it was dead mouse smell. Paranoid that the mouse had died in my sofa, we carefully and as quietly as possible tried to cut open the lining on the bottom but didn't find anything. So, we decided to move the sofa out into the hallway to see if the smell got better. Yes, it was 3 in the morning, and it is difficult to quietly move a couch, but the only person in my building that had ever complained about me making noise was Psycho 5F, so I figured it would be alright since I hadn't heard from her in a while. Jess proven wrong yet again in 3...2...1...
As Boyfriend and I were jimmying the sofa out my door and into the hallway, I heard a door slam from somewhere in the building, followed by angry shuffling up the stairs. I look up just in time to see a pissed-off disheveled Psycho 5F sprinting up the stairs. She went on a tirade, screaming in the middle of the tile hallway-making far more noise than Boyfriend and I ever were. I apologized and explained the suspected dead mouse situation, but before I could even put the sofa down to try to reason with her, she went on and on about how noisy we were all the time and how we keep her awake every night and we are the worst neighbors ever. In my frustration and panic at being screamed at in the middle of the night, I started to lose my cool at her inability to be reasoned with, and got snarky. I told her to move into a nunnery if she wanted peace and quiet all the time. This kind of set her off even more. Psycho 5F started getting flustered and spouting out random shit that didn't make sense, and accusing me of things that could not have possibly been my fault, but then she hit my hot button. She insinuated that I was some spoiled little sorority girl brat living off of my parents' money. I all but threw the couch down (much to Boyfriend's dismay) and literally went toe-to-toe with this bitch and schooled her in some ass-chewing. I don't remember what I said to her but we screamed at each other in the hallway for a few minutes until she shuffled off in defeat of my superior wit and bitchiness. She did have to get the last word in, though. Her final "zinger" was, "This isn't Friends, you know!" I pshed her and I turned back to Boyfriend who had a look on his face that was a combination of disbelief, pride, and concern. I think that was his first glimpse of what a nasty bitch I was capable of being. But, life continued on.
Cut to 3 nights later:
Boyfriend came over again after we both got done with work and we watched O, Brother, Where Art Thou, an eventful movie, but not exactly Jurassic Park with surround sound, right? The next morning, I had to get up early to move my car for the street sweeper and what do I find on my door? A passive-aggressive note from guess who. All of the underlines and other punctuation are hers.
5/19/08
4 AM (this is circled, mind you)
Dear Neighbors,
Please keep the volume of your music down after midnight. You woke me up again. I have been trying to get back to sleep for two hours. I realized there are "only two" of you and that's why I've had to listen to you moving in for the past six week or so, but there is only one of me to take care of everything I have to take care of so I really need my sleep!
When I moved in there was only one of me. Please try to be a bit more considerate.
Thank you, your downstairs neighbor.
This was what I was dealing with. I now understood that not only could this crazy not be reasoned with, she was completely unhinged. Never mind the fact that Boyfriend didn't live there, but I spent just as much time at his apartment as he did at mine, so I wasn't even home half the times this nutter was complaining about noise. I continued to attempt to be as quiet as possible and ignore her in the hopes that she would go away.
To make matters worse, two weeks later, I was fired from my job. Fired the day before my health benefits would have kicked in. Shady, no? So, in addition to desperately searching for work, dealing with the shitty Department of Labor, my unmedicated mental health issues, and constantly living in fear and guilt, I would get a nasty note on my door about once a week from the psycho bitch downstairs. Oh, and this was about that time when the country had plunged into that shitty recession we're still trying to recover from. Awesome. What I needed most during this time was to be able to come home and feel safe. Psycho 5F made that very difficult to do. Her notes were getting more and more irrational to the point where I actually started to be concerned for my safety. I had no idea how unhinged she was, but I didn't want to find out.
The final straw came for me late in the summer. I had to sell my car, and was able to find some temp office work a couple of times per week so I was barely eeking by. I had two ferrets at this point, and my oldest one, Gigit, was not doing well. The stress of everything and the heartache and fear for my dying baby made me snap. The final straw was an epic not from Psycho 5F blaming me for the fact that there were roaches in her apartment. Just a reminder: we lived in a 50+ year-old building in New York City. Roaches are kind of a thing here. She went on to all but accuse me of purposely placing my air-conditioner-unit above the window near where she eats her food and because of that, when she eats with her window open all the bugs come in and destroy her meals. (I so wish I was joking about this. I had this shit in writing, you guys.) Clearly, I was out to get her with my loud TV and my air-conditioner. Because no one else in NYC has A/C units in their windows, or hardwood floors, or TVs.
But, I'd had enough. I was done with her. I threw a Hail Mary pass to end all the bullshit with Psycho 5F. I typed up a professionally worded letter complete with some legal jargon (to make it sound more intimidating) informing her that she was harassing me even though I have done nothing illegal or against any rules set forth my our landlord. Therefore I would be reporting to the police and filing harassment charges against her and move to file a restraining order on her were she to come in contact with me again. This was mostly a lie. I didn't want to waste a day of my life sitting at the local police precinct, nor did I want to go through all of the red tape to file a restraining order. But, amazingly, she didn't call my bluff. From that day forward I was rid of Psycho 5F. Sort of. She still did horribly passive-aggressive obnoxious things like complain about me to the Super and his wife, along with any other neighbor who would give her the time of day. Needless to say, I didn't have any friends in the building. She would also blast jazz music or Macy Gray as loud as her stereo could go at 7am. But, finally, she was the least of my stressors.
Sadly, my ferret, Gigit died not long after I realized that Psycho 5F was probably out of my hair for good. Gigit was old and very sick, but she died peacefully in my arms at home, wrapped in a blanket. She was my oldest ferret and such a lovely girl. I will forever miss her.
But, as all things, this too is now past. I still miss my furbabies every day, but I escaped that stupid apartment with the crazy neighbor, and Boyfriend and I moved in together. And that is whole other adventure altogether. Like, our couch, for instance...
I was living in my apartment for nearly two months and in that time, I had 4 unpleasant encounters with Psycho 5F. After the incident with the Super's wife, I didn't hear from 5F for a little while and thought she'd given up. Boy was I wrong.
May 2008:
Boyfriend and I were watching movies all night on my ancient tube TV with crappy speakers. I only say this because I want to make it perfectly clear that I did not own surround sound. Just a crappy old tube TV. I don't remember what we were watching, but by 3AM we were going to call it a night when a really foul smell we'd been noticing got much worse. We couldn't pinpoint the source, but we were certain that it was dead mouse smell. Paranoid that the mouse had died in my sofa, we carefully and as quietly as possible tried to cut open the lining on the bottom but didn't find anything. So, we decided to move the sofa out into the hallway to see if the smell got better. Yes, it was 3 in the morning, and it is difficult to quietly move a couch, but the only person in my building that had ever complained about me making noise was Psycho 5F, so I figured it would be alright since I hadn't heard from her in a while. Jess proven wrong yet again in 3...2...1...
As Boyfriend and I were jimmying the sofa out my door and into the hallway, I heard a door slam from somewhere in the building, followed by angry shuffling up the stairs. I look up just in time to see a pissed-off disheveled Psycho 5F sprinting up the stairs. She went on a tirade, screaming in the middle of the tile hallway-making far more noise than Boyfriend and I ever were. I apologized and explained the suspected dead mouse situation, but before I could even put the sofa down to try to reason with her, she went on and on about how noisy we were all the time and how we keep her awake every night and we are the worst neighbors ever. In my frustration and panic at being screamed at in the middle of the night, I started to lose my cool at her inability to be reasoned with, and got snarky. I told her to move into a nunnery if she wanted peace and quiet all the time. This kind of set her off even more. Psycho 5F started getting flustered and spouting out random shit that didn't make sense, and accusing me of things that could not have possibly been my fault, but then she hit my hot button. She insinuated that I was some spoiled little sorority girl brat living off of my parents' money. I all but threw the couch down (much to Boyfriend's dismay) and literally went toe-to-toe with this bitch and schooled her in some ass-chewing. I don't remember what I said to her but we screamed at each other in the hallway for a few minutes until she shuffled off in defeat of my superior wit and bitchiness. She did have to get the last word in, though. Her final "zinger" was, "This isn't Friends, you know!" I pshed her and I turned back to Boyfriend who had a look on his face that was a combination of disbelief, pride, and concern. I think that was his first glimpse of what a nasty bitch I was capable of being. But, life continued on.
Cut to 3 nights later:
Boyfriend came over again after we both got done with work and we watched O, Brother, Where Art Thou, an eventful movie, but not exactly Jurassic Park with surround sound, right? The next morning, I had to get up early to move my car for the street sweeper and what do I find on my door? A passive-aggressive note from guess who. All of the underlines and other punctuation are hers.
5/19/08
4 AM (this is circled, mind you)
Dear Neighbors,
Please keep the volume of your music down after midnight. You woke me up again. I have been trying to get back to sleep for two hours. I realized there are "only two" of you and that's why I've had to listen to you moving in for the past six week or so, but there is only one of me to take care of everything I have to take care of so I really need my sleep!
When I moved in there was only one of me. Please try to be a bit more considerate.
Thank you, your downstairs neighbor.
This was what I was dealing with. I now understood that not only could this crazy not be reasoned with, she was completely unhinged. Never mind the fact that Boyfriend didn't live there, but I spent just as much time at his apartment as he did at mine, so I wasn't even home half the times this nutter was complaining about noise. I continued to attempt to be as quiet as possible and ignore her in the hopes that she would go away.
To make matters worse, two weeks later, I was fired from my job. Fired the day before my health benefits would have kicked in. Shady, no? So, in addition to desperately searching for work, dealing with the shitty Department of Labor, my unmedicated mental health issues, and constantly living in fear and guilt, I would get a nasty note on my door about once a week from the psycho bitch downstairs. Oh, and this was about that time when the country had plunged into that shitty recession we're still trying to recover from. Awesome. What I needed most during this time was to be able to come home and feel safe. Psycho 5F made that very difficult to do. Her notes were getting more and more irrational to the point where I actually started to be concerned for my safety. I had no idea how unhinged she was, but I didn't want to find out.
The final straw came for me late in the summer. I had to sell my car, and was able to find some temp office work a couple of times per week so I was barely eeking by. I had two ferrets at this point, and my oldest one, Gigit, was not doing well. The stress of everything and the heartache and fear for my dying baby made me snap. The final straw was an epic not from Psycho 5F blaming me for the fact that there were roaches in her apartment. Just a reminder: we lived in a 50+ year-old building in New York City. Roaches are kind of a thing here. She went on to all but accuse me of purposely placing my air-conditioner-unit above the window near where she eats her food and because of that, when she eats with her window open all the bugs come in and destroy her meals. (I so wish I was joking about this. I had this shit in writing, you guys.) Clearly, I was out to get her with my loud TV and my air-conditioner. Because no one else in NYC has A/C units in their windows, or hardwood floors, or TVs.
 | |||
| Yup. No one like that round these parts. (Photo: Business Insider) |
 |
| How could you not love such beautiful baby? |
But, as all things, this too is now past. I still miss my furbabies every day, but I escaped that stupid apartment with the crazy neighbor, and Boyfriend and I moved in together. And that is whole other adventure altogether. Like, our couch, for instance...
To Be Continued...
So, somehow your blog feed got deleted from my Google Reader (that, or I never added it properly to begin with) so for the past few months or so I've been completely unaware anything new has been posted here, and now I'm catching up. Sorry!
ReplyDeleteI'm also sorry to hear about all this unpleasantness, especially about poor Gigit. I can totally related to the psycho apartment neighbor, as it sounds eerily familiar. I called my neighbor Psychodouche, and I was legitimately afraid of him. He lived below me and would accuse me of making too much noise and playing music and TV too loud (which is ridiculous; if you know me, I HAVE NO LIFE--I'm as quiet as a mouse and wear headphones all the time) and leave threatening notes on my door. He had one of those huge, souped-up over-sized LOOK HOW AWESOME I AM, EVERYBODY! trucks for assholes with flame decals and truckballs hanging from the rear bumper, and I know for a fact he stored shotguns in it because he spent every un-rainy day out there cleaning and polishing them intimidatingly. Some people just born to be jerks and get off on making everyone else's life more unpleasant.
Wow. That's a crackpot neighbor you had too! Thank you for your sweet condolences on Gigit. She's been gone for several years now, but she is still missed. My furbabies will always be in my heart.
Delete