#30 Neighbors Be Hatin'

I have to do a lot of shit.  I am also forced into some responsibilities that aren't in my job description.  Namely, tenant relations.  Apparently, when neighbors and roommates don't like each other, they feel the need to use me as a moderator.  I don't know why.  This doesn't get me brownie points with the company I work for, nor does it make me any more money.  Not to mention, I really cannot do shit.

• One baby cries to me about how his roommate scares him.  You chose to live with with him.  You were not forced into this roommate situation like some kind of arranged marriage from your tribal father at the age of eight.  What does he want me to do?  Sit there while I listen to them argue in my office.  Luckily for me, the roommate didn't end up showing.  

• Another loud baby keeps getting called on because he's a music producer (a different one), and his "working" causes the walls to vibrate.  Thus, the people next to and below him hate him.  One evening, he wants me to "witness the atrocity" that has happened to him.  One of his neighbors has thrown eggs at his door and left him this note:

So the baby refuses to clean up the eggs, which I understand, but we live in an enclosed building.  It's not some apartment complex where your door opens to the outside.  Eggs in a hallway = not awesome.   And really, if you are going to vandalize and leave a bitchy note, at least check your spelling so you don't look stupid.  It's either the neighbors below, who are bitchy older queens, or the girls next door that are fresh-out-of-college aged.   Judging by the handwriting, it's got to be the girls.

• I had another pair of babies have some loud party, and there was a scuffle in the hall way between two of their guests.  The next door neighbor opened his door to see what the noise was about, and the two dudes starting fighting their way into the neighbor's unit.  The neighbor tried to kick them out, and instead, he got hit, so he became a part of this fist fight.   It all ended with me giving the guys with the party a noise violation fine the next day, which they paid.  I'm actually really amazed by this.  No one ever pays those fines. 

• Of course, this will end with the tenant of all tenants...Pigeon.  She's so goddamn terrible.  Her next door neighbor is this polite Christian family.  She blasts her music which she claims, "Ain't even that loud.  You feel me?" They knock on the wall they share, so she understands to turn it down.  This does not work with her.  She randomly started blasting her music at 4am the other night.  Her neighbor got woken up and went to ask her to turn it down, to which Pigeon was unresponsive and didn't even bother to open the door.  She left them this note the next day:

To those of you that can't read this chicken scratch, it states:

     TO (Who Ever)

        Yo Don't ever Knock 

        at my door At no 

        Damn 4:00 AM in the 

        morning, because the 

        music was not loud.  And 

        for the record, Yall need to 

       quit Knocking on 

       my Walls all the Damn times. 

                 Pigeon (or her real name, which you cannot even make out, so it's fine)

#29 Pigeon IV: A Child and Voicemails

By now, you should be familiar with the antics of my most annoying tenant, Pigeon.   Why is it that one of the worst tenants is the one that calls me every day with some kind of annoying complaint?  Maybe that's what makes her the worst tenant.  Either way, she's a huge pain in my ass.

Pigeon has a child. Upon seeing him, you'd notice this cute four-year old child, with a bright spirit and adorable smile.  It's deceiving, because in reality, this kid is a little shit.  

Our maintenance guy has to go into Pigeon's place every few weeks because her kid has an affinity for unraveling an entire roll of toilet paper into the toilet, flushing, and clogging the toilet.  Fucking gross. Like it's my maintenance guy's responsibility to clean up after your dirty ass baby.

I have a coffee table with local business postcards and takeout menus in my office.  In my OCD way, I like to have them in orderly stacks, and placed neatly in categories.
The other day, Pigeon was in my office, and she brought her spawn.  Her asshole kid says,
"Look mommy!  All these cards!"
And then he proceeds to bunch all the cards together and triumphantly throw them in the air with both hands, like LeBron James tossing up talcum powder before a game or Scrooge McDuck relishing in his riches.

After Pigeon scolds him and tells him to sit down, he sits at my Leasing Agent Charlotte's desk, and starts opening up her drawers.  He finds a green highlighter and starts drawing all over her desk calendar.
Pigeon is doing nothing, so I go up to him and take the marker away from him.
"You can't do that."
"Yes I can."
"Why did you draw on my paper?"
"Because I want to."
"Its my marker."
"No! It's my marker."
"No. This is my paper, and my marker and you aren't allowed to draw on it."
"It's my marker and I want to."
I don't even know why I am arguing with this little asshole. He's four-years old.  His logic makes no sense.    All the while, Pigeon is just sitting there looking at her phone.  She chimes in with,
"People tell me he's just hyper and this is normal."
I hear that she beats him.  I kind of don't blame her.

-------------------
Let's end this with some voicemails Pigeon recently left me. Much like the other ones, these are verbatim.

This one should be read in a calm, yet confused tone:

Hey Mapple. This is Pigeon. I want to know what's goin' on with the mail. The mail...I haven't gotten any mail in 7 days, not even no bill papers.  I didn't even get no bill papers! So can you call me and um, and um, see, and let me know what's going on with the mail please, because this is like really weird. I want my mail. I don't even care if it's a little penny saver, K? Thank you, buh bye, later.

Like I know where your mail disappears to.  Turns out, when your mailbox gets filled up because you don't check it, the mail carrier just takes it back to the post office and saves it.  When Pigeon was giving me her daily call the day after, she said, "Hey, I called you yesterday about something...what was it?" Ugh. Why is she calling me about anything?!

This should be read in an angry, demanding way:

Mapple, this is Pigeon! It is the 1st and I need cable in my apartment.  There's no way somebody stayin' up in here with no cable. That's some... a job, in itself for the building, because you guys are the ones that chose that company, and it's unprofessional.  It's a lot of people up in here having problems with they cable, because they told me, so I need y'all to call the cable people so I can get cable in my apartment. I've been here...how long, like three months? Um, and in this particular apartment, and I was having problems in the other apartment with the cable too.  It shouldn't be like that. I need my cable. On the real. I really do. Um, y'all need to let me know sumn.' Alright. Call me back. I know you know my number for this shit. 213-555-5555. There it is again, and alright Mapple, call me again, and I just put the rent in there, too. Peace...Apartment 801...

Yeah, I know what unit you live in.  Plus, this shit is between you and the cable company.  You call them.  

When typing this, I was hesitant to add punctuation, because she just rambles in one long sentence.  This makes it easier to read, and really, you get the idea.

#28 Jumper

While sitting on my couch eating Cheez-Its, and I get a call from the resident manager next door:
"Hey, are you here?"
"Yeah"
"Oh, so you know."
"No. What."
"You have a jumper."

Fan-fucking-tastic.  I actually find this news exhilarating.  As I was running down the stairs, I figured that it was some idiot that found a tall building to jump off of.  Then I got annoyed as to how this idiot got in the building.  After thoughts of annoyances, I realized that that was actually not the case.
When I got to the lobby, the cops were looking for me.   They wanted me to open a door on the 9th floor.
"Do you know an Aaron?"
"Yes, 918, Aaron Green."
"He's the one on the roof.  We need you to open his door, but don't go in.  We'll do that.  There may be dead bodies."
"Um, ok."
I opened the door and they busted in.  There was no one in there but a small dog. While the cops are searching his place, I get on the phone with someone that works at my head office.
"Hey, you know that tenant that used to always pay late, Aaron Green?"
(some girl walking by interrupts me) "Did you say Aaron Green?  I know him!"
(to her) "Well, he's on the roof, (back to the phone) so yeah, he's about to jump, and I don't know what to do..." and I trail off and the chick at the head office tells me to go up, get a police report, and any insurance information (irritated eye roll).
When I get up to the roof, the cops won't let me by, and the girl that I saw in the hall was freaking the fuck out.
"What's you're deal?"
"Aaron is my ex-boyfriend.  I just broke up with him."
"Eeeh."   I replied.
What I really wanted to say was "Oh, bitch, this shit is YOUR fault!"

Since the cops won't let me up the pool area, I know another way where I can watch.  Here's all I could see.

Just a bunch of cops hanging around.  Turns out, he went over the gate of the pool, and our security guard Naseem and another tenant, that just happened to be at the hot tub, grabbed onto him and held him so he wouldn't fall.  Then the cops came and handcuffed him to the gate.  He was just dangling off the roof. 

So the cops just held on to him until the fire department came, in which they brought a saw and cut the fence that Aaron climbed over.
Now, this happens every once in awhile downtown, and cops know the procedure.  Although this has never happened on my building, I've seen it happen to others.  They are mainly hotels.  They block off the streets surrounding the building, and the front of my building looked like this:

Cops everywhere, standing around.  They have way more important shit to do, but just like anyone else, they love the thrill of a jumper. 
After they sawed the fence and took custody of the jumper, they put him in the ambulance pictured above and away he went.  He had all these friends in the lobby sobbing and feeling super uncomfortable because tenants were all a buzz ("Someone tried to jump off the roof?! Who is it? That's nuts!") IN TURN, the huddle of crying friends made everyone else feel uncomfortable because it's A GROUP OF SOBBING ADULTS in, what is normally, an empty lobby.

All the while, this fucking baby is following me around and bothering me.
"Hey, I know you're busy and all, but I saw all the fire trucks and I thought it was a fire, so I ran out, and now I'm locked out.  Can you let me in?"
"Yeah, after I talk to the cops, just hold on a second."
She keeps pestering me, and being super impatient.
Bitch, I have shit to deal with.  See all the police and fire people around asking me questions?  Back up.  Your pot of boiling water can wait.  Fuck.

After all was said and done, Aaron was fine.  He apparently doesn't remember much, and he paid his rent on time.  One of my tenants is a part-time paparazzo and he finagled his way onto the roof enough to capture the action and put it on YouTube.  It has a couple hundred thousand hits.  Aaron's friends are not too happy about it.

They are literally saving his life using the wedgie method.  See how high it is?....shit.