Sunday (10/16/11) Effie got really active after taking a few days off, so to speak. During the "quiet" times since last Wednesday, she just banged around in her kitchen (she likes to make noise with her cupboard doors) and played her music juuuuuuusssst loud enough so we could hear the bass through the walls. But nothing out of the ordinary for her. Well, as ordinary as she gets, anyway.
Sunday (10/16/11) she got off to an early start. She had another morning "barbecue"--this one at 7AM. By the way, when I say "barbecue" let it be known that no food is involved. This detail is important.
I've been fighting a cold, so I spent a lot of the day in and out of sleep. While I was awake during the afternoon, at least three times I heard her garage door slide open then closed. Not in an OCD way...as if she were really making trips between her unit and the garage. We noticed that none of the rubbish bins was moved this whole day. So much for her rant about pathway obstruction, eh!
Fast forward to 8:30 PM or so. We smelled smoke. Sweetie recognized the familiar scent of burning paper. First place we checked was our back porch, and sure enough, there was smoke rising from Effie's side of the fence. We couldn't quite tell if the smoke might be coming from outside Effie's enclosure, so we went 'round the front to check. I had the cordless phone in hand. Nice bright white bit of plastic. The smoke was definitely coming from Effie's patio.
But Effie wasn't home.
Couldn't have timed this better if I'd written a screenplay: right then, her big, brown van came slowly around the corner to the east of us and she drove by equally slowly, past the house, in a very creepy way. Sweetie thought she was going to turn around and park, but no go.
I had to decide which was the best course of action. Doing nothing was not an option. To bring the fire department out for such a small SUPPOSEDLY contolled fire would have been overkill. So I dialed up the landlords, per their request for us to report anything weird.
Mr. Landlord (I do need to get him a nice moniker!) was over within five minutes. He knocked on Effie's door twice--no reply. So he confirmed for a fact that Effie had indeed left a fire burning in her backyard.
Mr. Landlord had a look: he said this "barbecue" he could see was nothing more than a cast iron pot full of smoldering twigs. He was going to douse the mess with water and leave her a note that he had been there and done that. He thanked us profusely.
Oh, and mentioned he brought his camera. Ka-cha!
No retributive behaviors to report. Yet.
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