Confronting the Bully

I realize today that Effie is a bully.

This morning, my Sweetie and I had to return to our abode to retrieve a forgotten bus pass.  Effie was fussing in ...well, it's not even really part of her garden.  It's part of that extra four feet of walkway she fails to recognize.

"That's a nice smile," she said--all the snark in her voice, as usual.

And then I let her have it. "(Real first name) (real middle name) (real last name), leave us alone." 

In her complaint to the landlady, she said I was shouting.  Nope, just a clear enough voice so I could be sure she was hearing.  Definitely not my infamous "hockey-fan" voice.

"Leave YOU alone?  You leave ME alone!" she retorted.  Note here, please, that she repeated my command back to me, so I *knew* she heard it.

My Sweetie did the logical thing, namely asking what we'd done to her, "What exactly have we done to you?"  And then she made her threat:  "Oh, you'll find out later."  (Sorry, she wasn't more specific, but a woman knows when another woman is making a threat.)  Her voice was movie-sinister!

I repeated my command.  "(Real first name) (real middle name) (real last name), leave us alone," and then encouaged Sweetie to follow me into the house, telling him in a softer voice, "We know who she is and what she's done.  You'll never get a reasonable answer out of her."  (Ref: The heroin drug mule charge from 1980. More on that later.)
 

We retrieved the bus pass and headed back out our door.  By this time, Effie had passed our door.  She said something about our needing a mirror to see our faces. (??) I repeated my command a third time, "(Real first name) (real middle name) (real last name), leave us alone."  And then we turned and walked on our way back to our bus stop.

I was so proud of myself for standing up to the bully with the one weapon she couldn't fight:  her real name.
***
I spent much of today wondering what her retaliatory activity would be.  I should remember that she waits about two weeks for retaliation.

My Sweetie assuaged my worries by putting together an after-work conference call with the landlady.  Indeed, as soon as Effie got back into her side of the duplex, she wrote a (probaby nasty) email to her, accusing the landlady of having shared her personal information with us.  (Nope, Google!)

The upshot of our conversation:  the landlady knew Effie's real name and about the house foreclosure.  A background check showed "something minor." Apparently, the background check gave no details.  She didn't know about the heroin and the drug mule charges.  But it's logical that if she ratted out someone up higher in the supply chain, of course she would do it to get her own situation improved.  Landlady (name) seemed surprised and interested to learn my evidence we have a true felon living next door.  (I don't care what deals she made with the justice system; she was committing a felony and that's that!)  She was also oddly amused at Effie's 6 AM "barbecue"--she, too, wondered what that was all about!

We're home now.  Oddly, no evidence of tampering with our property has occurred.  But it's dark, and we haven't gone out to the back patio.  I fully expected something done to our vehicles.  But even her favorite rubbish bin was left where the collectors would have left it.

Oh, and the landlady confessed she and her husband want to evict her--our state requires 60 days' notice based on the length of her tenancy.  But they believed some story that Effie was going to have surgery of some sort in October.  I en't buying it, of course.  They were going to wait until January.  They haven't yet promised a date, but they have agreed that it shouldn't wait that long, and that they should tell us as soon as they inform her, so we can watch out for the building and the property for them.
Meanwhile, the landlords are living in fear that Effie will destroy this property somehow.  Ever see that movie, "Pacific Heights"?  Weird tenant manages to completely destroy a rental property--and even take it over legally.  Strange movie, but not completely impossible.  But Effie has a record, so that's a little different.
 
Sweetie predicts Effie will leave the landlords no choice but to enact an "FED" (Forced Eviction Decree), which ties up money and time.  Over a year, he says.  (He used to work for a local county...knows a lot about this stuff.)
 
Shhh!  Don't tell her!

Muttering...Muttering...Muttering

We took the car with us when we left the house on Friday morning.  Usually, we go out the back way to shave a little time off the walk to the bus stop, but as you know, the vehicles are INconveniently (for Effie) at the front.

There she was, doing Heaven Knows What in her little front porch garden.  She knelt in--this is hard to erase from my memory--a very short red bathrobe of some sort.  I remember bare legs.  Sadly.  As we walked past, minding our own business, she muttered, "Friendly neighbors!" as she rose and disappeared through her front door.

All we can think is that in that short getup she was airing out the, er, drug transport equipment.  Shudder.

She fussed with her favorite bin three days in a row last week, but left them alone at the weekend.  Tonight, the bin is where it belongs.  I did buy that pink chalk and glow-in-the-dark glitter.  No need for it today.

Yet.

Fun & Games & a Camera

Effie has been playing with our rubbish bins, again, yesterday and today.  Sweetie also thinks she may have been fussing with his mail.  (He didn't really say fussing.)

Never mind:  I've got photos!  Been carrying my faithful little digi-cam with me to capture the essence of Effie's antics.

I plan to buy some sidewalk chalk.  I don't know if I have to choose a color, but I'm hoping to find pink. And glitter.  Lots of glow-in the dark glitter!  I plan to draw an outline around where her favorite bin belongs and write, "It goes here, (real first name)."  If she "forgets" to put the bin back a second time, I'll add her real middle and last names.  Third time, Heaven help us all, Sweetie will write a really businesslike "cease and desist" letter.

I do keep in mind we have reason to believe she's a felon and we know she's unbalanced.  But I can't resist the call of the pink chalk and GLITTER!  And a photograph of my artwork!

The Rambling Epistle of August 2011 (with Facts!)

My partner has graciously granted me permission to transcribe the most recent Rambling Epistle (the one that led to my Google search) as I see fit.  So, with no further ado, I shall present the text minus some of the crudities and real names.

Oh, and I'm doing my best to preserve the typos and poor punctuation practices. The whole, whiny missive gets a big "(sic)."

Tenant to Tenant Letter - August 2011

August 24, 2011
To The (misspelled)s, X and X
in the back unit of duplex at

from

(Alias First, Alias Last)


Tenant Obstruction and Lack of Civil, Courteous Communication

This morning as you left your house at 8 am I heard your door slam very loudly, and the female voice said "Leave my (stuff)alone". I thought you were having a domestic argument. So did some of my friends when I told them. I heard this just outside my kitchen window (4 feet from your door) while washing dishes. Then I thought, 'was that directed at me ?' Usually when a neighbor wants to tell another neighbor something, a phone call ora door knocking happens. The ONLY time you have EVER knocked upon my door in the two years I have lived here, was in October of 2009, when you wanted sympathy for your garage door being crow-barred open, its glass  scattered and damaged in our back-alley parking spots. I notice since that day, your red truck and your other car never stays back there at night. It used to be there all the time because you do not use it. Mine van never did stay back there.  Alleys are dangerous. I only load things there. Now you crowd all of our cars with the red truck and cause a lot of stress by leaving it there and rarely using it at all. It's hard for me to park around you. Three cars now stay in a spot which should only hold two; one for each unit of the duplex. It has always been ALL about YOU these last two years! Must be fun to feel so much more important that everyone else. I have to tell you - It's an illusion.

Quite frankly, your behavior remnds me of two teenaged girls in junior high school. Vindictive, arrogant, uncommunicative, plotting and ambushing in a passive aggressive manner. When I went out at 9 am this morning, I found my yard debris can moved to the street, directly in front of my car so that the other car could not move. I had to chuckle to myself again, ...teenagers, up to their tricks. You moved it - I watched you do it.

Okay, we need to stop here for a moment for a Fact Check.
1.  "We" meaning my sweetie, knocked on her door on that one occasion not for sympathy, but rather to alert her to a crime.  (The police came and took photos, btw.  They were very nice.)
2.  We NEVER placed the yard debris bin WE SHARE on the street.  Not our style.
3.  There's plenty of space for all three vehicles in the public street parking. There is no legal requirement to park in front of a particular building OR NOT.  It's a popular complaint, but really, you can't require people not to park in front of your house.  At least not in this jurisdiction.
4.  Oh, and the "I watched you do it" part is the primary reason we avoid her: she's creepy and stares at us.

Back to the letter...

Why can't you simply be mature in your middle age and have a face to face discussion? If Landlady (name) can do it, why can't you? A kind voice asking a question of me, or making a request is something in two years of my residency here, I have NEVER heard out of you! That is, except for the very first day when you 'kindly instructed' me how ot talk to cats, after I told you that one tried to get in my door. You should know that  I have great experience with all animals (hands on as well as observance) and their behaviors. Zoology and Naturalist studies figured large in my schooling. I told you that I was not a "cat person", but I should have said that I'm not a 'cat fanatic'. I was trying to be polite.

1. I was trying to be polite when I told her how to get rid of the cat without having to touch it--she indicated she was allergic to them. Oh, right, Cesar Millan doesn't cover cats.

2.  One more reason we avoided her: from the "Day One" conversation, she hinted very strongly that she wanted my sweetie and me to carry her belongings in her move. Sweetie is in his fifties.  He will risk his back for his friends, not a stranger from whom he got the creeps IMMEDIATELY.  She made it clear that helping her move fell into her definition of "neighborly."

(Sweetie)'s letter written in early Fall of 2009, in reponse to my friendly, hand written, hand delivered note (which was clearly just meant to clarify what to do about the walkway and a couple of other shared issues), was quite arrogant and authoritarian in its demands and statements about our shared areas, and did not allow for a getting to know you as a neighbor, or your issues and feelings on a neighborly basis.

Another Fact Check 
1.  The Fall 2009 letter to which she refers (we'll hunt it down so you can see the text later) was neither friendly nor "neighborly."  Rather, it was demanding and wildly off base--including her fantastical demand that we leave our porch light on for her all night, every night.  (I referred to that in an earlier post.)  That was also when she accused my sweetie of "storing" his vehicle in the public parking spot she coveted at the time--well before the garage door incident. 
2.  My sweetie's response was businesslike and took care to address issues that included potential liability risks we cared not to take.  She asked if he were a lawyer.  I'm so proud of his writing!
3.  "Hand delivered" in her words actually translates to she placed it in our mailbox.  That's a federal crime.

That's something I usually have with my neighbors.
Fact:  All the neighbors around here are so mad at her, we still don't know who she means here.  This includes those "friends" she claimed to have in the first paragraph.

Instead, it set a tone of rigid- mindedness. Don't you know that attitudes are contagious? You clearly were not at all interested in my issues with access on the sidewalk to my garage which passes right in front of your front door. You place trash cans there, on the 4 foot wide walkway, which obstruct anyone walking back to the garages - of course YOU do not need to access your garage, carrying things, from the back, so you could not care less about anyone else needing to. The trash cans obstruct the 4 foot path leaving only 22 INCHES in which I and my friends can move our pass, carrying boxes back and forth to my front door.
 
Fact Check
1.  In Sweetie's letter, he stated quite clearly she was welcome to move the bins, and requested she please put them back when finished.  The bins are placed there to discourage mail theft: packages are left in clear view on our front step.
2.  Fact she actually got right: we are not at all interested in any of her issues. She is spot-on: attitudes are contagious:  hers. You worked that one out, right?
3.  Her measurements are fairly accurate, however she takes into account only the cement portion of the walkway.  She fails to acknowledge that there is a sawdust-covered area parallel to the cement that affords another four feet of passable walkway that has no plants.  Maybe it's a gardening thing.  She IS the botanist...
4.  We have yet to see her actually carry a box.  Just sayin'.

22 inches is just not acceptable!!!. I have moved your trash cans many, many times, and put them back, as you wished. Once in a while, I forget because of a phone call or other distraction or the need to continue moving boxes that same day. I'm usually pretty considerate of others.But whenI have to listen to a screaming high-school banshee saying..." Put the back----PUT IT BACK!! " I can only feel sorry for someone who never grew up and learned common courtesy. And then I have to laugh at the whole situation and the ridulousness of it all!  What a waste of energy.

Fact Check
1.  You get the bit about the walkway.  There are EIGHT feet of unobstructed walkway, except where our porch steps and the offending rubbish bins occupy the same spots they did before she moved in.
2.  The only reason I shouted my instruction to her was because she's waaaay too creepy to approach. And I remembered the aforementioned landlady's husband discovered she doesn't like coarse language.  She had been on my last nerve. Whats a barking banshee to do?
3.  "What a waste of energy."  Um...you mean like a rambly, whiny letter?

Ha! I have been wanting to move away from here for a long, time.  Since February of 2010.  knows this. I stopped looking for the place, which has what I need, when I hurt my foot. Now, with other health issues pending, I have to postpone a little while longer -so- that's unfortunate for ALL of us. The know I am leaving and you can get your info from them.

Fact Check
1.  The landlords told us she pushed six months' rent in cash at them when she moved in--as we now know after her foreclosure.  She was going to be out in six months.  Her constant complaining moved the landlord, who is not mentioned in this missive, invited her to move the  out.  I believe he told us about that episode within her first month here.
2.  The landlords have also told us that her "needs" include a lack of stairs. Both units in this duplex are on two levels. She knew that when she moved in.  Her house had a basement, but maybe she didn't use it. One of her more entertaining claims was that she found a place to live, but it burned down!  And then she was interested in another place but somehow the owners' divorce got in the way.  It's hard to find a place when you're living under an alias, I guess.
3.  Oh, and one more little thing: if she wants to move out, why did she plant a garden along her front porch and a few plants in the alley way?  And why is she asking that a large, well-established Douglas Fir tree be removed from the alley way.  If she's moving, it's not her problem.
4.  She has volunteered with "Friends of Trees."  LOL.

This neighborhood has more loud, barking dogs and dog fights constantly, (-every day an devery night and all day long), and it has more ignorant people in close proximity to me who do not know how to rehab a neurotic dog than I have ever lived around in my entire life. They have never even heard of Cesar Millan. Even some of the neighbors bark too much! There is no sun to grow my plants; there are insects and black aphids dropping from the weeping willow tree on the plants in my rocky scrabble soil, shaded on my tiny patio pad -- heick! There is not much to keep me interested in living here! So worry not! I am going away. You will still have to be considerate to the next tenant who uses that sidewalk that you blithely obstruct. I highly recommend that you approach them face to face "in person" and do not write an arrogant, aloof, ice-cold, postal delivered letter to get your way with your co-tenant whose door is 10 steps away from your own and who has tried to be friendly and civil with you.


Getting your own way at a duplex is insanity. A duplex has common areas and is meant to be shared. Parking and walkways, in our case. People need to communicate and to compromise in a pleasant way. When you don't, it makes for discord. Do you like discord? Its time to grow up and stop trying to get your way by stomping your feet, shouting and swearing and slamming doors. You must be way over 40 by now. Time to join the adult world.


By the way, I am constantly answering my doorbell when males ring it asking me over and over again about your ubiquitous Red Truck. I'm getting tired of that. Its been two years now. Put a sign in the thing, saying NOT FOR SALE, will you, please? Your truck is right in front of my door.


I'm also  tired of hand delivering some of your endlessly arriving packages to your doorstep when a careless mail delivery person drops them at MY door! It's happened more than 7 times in two years. Thats too much to do for unfriendly people. Do I get a "thank you" ? Or should I return to sender?

Fact Check
1. If we're not aware which packages she drops on our doorstep with the correctly delivered packages, how do we know for what we should express gratitude?
2. She fails to recall the ONE large box of hers that landed on our doorstep. Sweetie placed it gently on her front porch and CALLED (!!) her to notify her that it was there, since it was early evening and she failed to answer a KNOCK on her door and a DOORBELL RING.
3.  "Getting your own way at a duplex is insanity." Gosh, I wish I had that first "neighborly" demand letter right now to agree with her 100%.  She walked into that one.

You are very lucky that I am not a bar-hopping alcoholic, because if I was, I would be going all over town and talking about your behavior.



Fact Check: 
1.  Huh? When did alcohol come into this?  I've taken great pains in this blog not to be drinking alcohol and not to mention names or identifiable locations.  I know what libel is!  Does she know what slander is?
2. I think I've failed to mention that the landlords both have observed drunken behavior from Effie. We suspect she was in that particular state when she composed this diatribe. Just speculation.


You might have more problems than just an occasionally moved trash can to deal with. Like perhaps your doorbell being rung at all hours of the night.

Make up your mind, Effie!  Doorbell? No doorbell?  The "males" can't see the red truck in the dark.

I'll be out of here before you know it and then you can live happily ever after. Please be considerate to whomever shares your duplex after me. Visiting grief upon a fellow neighbor is illegal. Peaceful enjoyment is my right. Between you barking and parking, and the neighbor to the west with the incessantly yapping rat dogs, I have not had much enjoyment in two years. Congratulations. Job well done.

thank you,


cc/

Let's review:
To date we have done the following:
Not played loud music or telly.
Not burned anything on our back porch.
Not done anything to prevent her from moving the infernal rubbish bins.
Not held ANY parties, let alone loud parties.
Not been nuisances in any way--unless avoidance is a type of nuisance?
Not given in to her demands. (I'll find that first epistle!)

I shouted at her at least two weeks prior to this missive.  On only two occasions, well during daylight hours.  I could have been shouting at the "yapping rat dog" for all anyone would care.  (The dog does bark, but that's her way of communicating.  It's not constant; it's no more than a human would talk.)

Her claim that we have in any way infringed upon her right to peaceful enjoyment is completely baseless.  Except in those two occasions, for which I am not in the least sorry.

BTW: If she places one more "neighborly" letter in our mailbox illegally, I will personally call the postal customer service and let them send her the "cease and desist" letter they told me about.  Addressed to her real first, middle, and last names to be certain there is no mistaking who we mean.

Barbecue at 6AM?

This very morning, in the pitch-black darkness, my sweetie stepped out on our back patio to perform acts of tobacco inhalation.  No lights were on in either our patio or Effie's. This is important.

He observed flames shooting up at least four feet high (no exaggeration here), visible through the fence that divides our patio from hers.  The flames died down a bit, but then picked up again.  There was no noise, such as the sound of lighter fluid cans being squeezed or any type of rustling about.  He did much better than I would have done when he asked, POLITELY, "May I ask what you are doing?"

There was no immediate reply, which concerned him.  He thought it may be an arsonist.  Our back alleyway was recently targeted by an arsonist who set fire to a neighbor's shrubbery, so his concern was not unfounded.

Quietly, the sarcastic response came over the fence, "If you're talking to me, I do have a name."

Oh boy, do we EVER know her name!  Here we must digress for a few moments.

After Effie wrote that recent Rambling Epistle, which included her first and last names (first time we had that bit), I did a little Google search.  Not only did I find she's living under an alias, she also apparently has a record!  Short version: a woman bearing her same (legal) name was detained in a major west coast airport (that just happens to be in the same city where Effie grew up) for seven hours on a return from Thailand before the customs folk got a search warrant and an x-ray after which she opted to remove the packet of HEROIN from her, er, nether regions.

Interestingly enough, my Google-ventures also led me to find an interesting gap in (definitely Effie's) Linked In profile during that same time and a few years afterward.  Also, she mentions having traveled to Thailand.  Thus far, I have been unable to prove myself wrong.  I have serious reason to believe our girl is a drug mule felon!

Less interestingly, she moved here because her house -- which she had to buy under her legal name (small world!) -- was foreclosed on in the Countrywide scam.  If she were nicer, I'd feel sorrier for her.  I do feel a little sorry for her.  Very little.  Oh, and so much for her story about having to sell her house...that was from Day One.

Back to this morning's encounter.

Effie:  "If you're talking to me, I have a name..." 
           and some grot about "you've never been nice" and "it could have been so much better if you had been nice..." 
Sweetie "My niceness is immaterial."
Effie:  Of course it's immaterial.  It's always all about you.
Sweetie:  Listen, I saw open flames and was concerned.  (Good on him for not biting on her attack!)

Effie:  "It's a barbecue I've had for years."

???

He said, "Well, thank you," and left it at that and went into the house.

We're waiting for another shoe to drop.  She tends to wait several days before doing something stupid in retaliation for imaginary affronts.  Or was this an "ambush?"  I can't keep up with her twisted imagination and flights of fancy.  Maybe I shouldn't use the word "flight" in conjunction with her...

Stay tuned!

One More Thing

I've begun taking photos of where we find our rubbish bin.   I think I've figured out how to post a photo, but for reasons to be explained in a separate post, I shan't do it just today.  Hint: she's more than just a nutter; she's a nutter with a past.  Found it using the Google.

Oh, the Things I Forgot!

As you know from the sparse information I've provided thus far, Effie likes to complain about the (public) parking sitch.  It occurred to me recently that I forgot about the time we had a complaint about her parking.  And I have photos.

According to my camera, on 10 August 2010 we arrived home from work to find she had backed herself so close to the bumper of my sweetie's pickup truck (just a little Nissan jobbie, not one of those that is indicative of discomfort with his hairline)...well, let's just say with that kind of laser-measurement precision we weren't buying her argument in that first letter that she had any kind of "nerve damage" we'd heard of.

(Sorry for the disjointed blogging, but in her letter in which she first complained of the parking, she claimed to have nerve damage and limited ability to see out of her nearly-windowless van.)

If memory serves, her van was in the "front" spot, truck was behind that, and my car was behind that (illegally in the curb cut, but there's no driveway and no one has enforced).  This is important because he was truly blocked in.  If I hadn't been there with my keys (only one set...I know, not smart), he couldn't get out.

Okay, so he called her on the phone.  I heard his voice getting a little agitated--but he was remaining polite and businesslike.  When I heard him comment something like, "That's completely beside the point," I started channelling my departed father, an attorney.  What would he suggest?  Yup:  Get photos!

All he asked was for her to move up her van a couple of feet.  We found out that she had (this still makes me laugh til my abs feel in really great shape) "lined up her passenger window with the front walk" so we understood why she had left such a ridiculous amount of space in front of her.  But she was refusing to move the vehicle until it was convenient for her.  We're talking about 8:00 PM; it wasn't quite completely dark, yet.

Long story much shortened:  it's amazing how fast a van can be moved when a camera flash is visible.

Since then, she's been parking in the curb-cutout spot, even when BOTH of our vehicles are out.

Oh, even if I could figure out how to post the best photos here, I'm afraid to do it.  That's for another post.