I also discovered that an insane person (or at least an insanely angry) person lives in my apartment building. Here's the background:
I live in a building that has a really positive community feel to it. There's a table in the main lobby where people leave things they don't need for others to take for free. And when people move out, they often hold moving sales and post signs in the building. Usually they put a sign on each of the two elevators, since that will catch most people's eye as they come and go.
My sale was scheduled for Saturday, 1pm-5pm, so on Friday evening, I posted a few signs. I used tape to put up the signs, but tested it first to make sure it wouldn't damage the paint, and planned to leave them up only until the end of my sale. A few hours later, I found the sign from the elevator torn down and thrown, crumpled, on the floor. I posted a new one. Repeat 3 more times. After the 4th sign, since my printer is on its way to California and I had to print my signs at Kinkos, I was starting to run out! I posted one more sign, and added a small note asking the person to please stop removing my signs.
The next time I went to the elevator, someone had taken the sign down, crumpled it thoroughly, written on it, and reposted it. The general idea is that I am treating the building like a dorm by posting a sign using small pieces of carefully-tested tape, along with a request to "Stop WRECKING our home, you SELFISH NITWIT!!!" The sale was almost over by that point, so I took down the sign and moved on--or so I thought.
TCH San Fran went out to remove a couple other signs from nearby buildings, and during the 5 or so minutes he was gone, my anonymous critic went to his/her apartment, typed up an angry missive in bold font, printed it, tiptoed to my apartment, and TAPED the sign to my apartment door. The irony and possible humor around the use of tape didn't escape me...except that when something like this happens, you kind of wonder if the person is crazed and murderous, and the fact that they are anonymous, but know where you live, is a little creepy. At least the sign wasn't posted with a bloody knife the way it would be in a movie.
So how did we deal with it? We wanted it to just be over. We wrote a note that said, "We are very sorry. We hadn't considered your point of view, and it makes a lot of sense. Please know that we have learned something for the future. Thank you for taking the time to explain."
I guess those years of diffusing customer service tension really do come in handy sometimes. After reading that note, how could anyone--even someone seriously unhinged, with an inability to make sure the hate mail they tape on people's doors is hung straight--feel they need to pursue the issue further? In some way, this strange and angry person has won the battle that only they were fighting. I'm leaving (though I was anyway), and having had a glimpse inside someone's creepy mind, I am sufficiently subdued and am looking forward to getting out of here. I suppose they felt my sign hanging on the elevator door to be an invasion of their space, and so they decided to invade my space in return. The sheer passive-aggressiveness of the whole thing has left me feeling a little bemused, but it's time to move on.
Meanwhile, while we were dealing with all of that, I was also trying to sell stuff in my apartment. As I said, some items sold - but we are still left with a bunch of things, including 2 big items - the couch and my dresser. I hope we won't end up setting them out for free, as they're in good shape and worth a little money. At a certain point, though (like tomorrow), we're going to have to dispo them and move on from this city.
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