Diary of the Red Queen, Mama & Lunatic
Diary of the Red Queen, Mama & Lunatic
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2002-08-28 - 1:29 p.m. Here's a letter I recently sent to my apartment complex manager: August 20, 2002 Dear Marie: Thank you very much for your prompt attention to my safety concerns regarding my neighbor (or possibly it was my neighbor's guest). I hope you'll understand, however, if I do not wish to meet in person with people who have physically threatened me and someone I care about. I believe that mediation can do no good after the events of Saturday night. In my opinion, the line of civil discussion was crossed when the gentleman in question threatened both me and my (well-behaved) guest with physical violence should we ever knock on his door again (an act which, as I understand, is entirely legal). Mediation is a good solution for reasonable people and one I completely support in principle. However, it is my firm belief that one cannot threaten physical violence and then step back and say, "Oh, wait, let's talk this out." That is not reasonable. The gentleman in question has nothing to lose from mediation as that would bring him up to our level after he so decisively proved himself a villain. Saturday night, we noted an excessive amount of noise coming from apartment #413. We could only hear the bass notes, but they were shaking my apartment and making it very difficult to hear ourselves. I decided to go downstairs and knock on the door to ask them to turn the bass down, thinking they could then enjoy their music and we could enjoy the film we were watching. I knocked three times on their door, loud enough to be sure they could hear me, but not in an impolite way. When I got no response, I was surprised; the few times I have knocked on their door in the past, they have always answered the door promptly. I went back upstairs and tried banging on the floor a few times to see if they might get the message. When they didn�t, I initially hesitated but then decided to call the police as I knew no one was in the apartment office and was hoping that the police could convince the people downstairs to turn it down. One hour later I called again to see if there had been anyone dispatched. The police told me that there was nothing they could do, so I made my first call to the apartment office and left a message. After a few more disheartened thumps on the floor, I and my guest went out to my balcony so he could smoke and we could try to relax and wait out the noise so that we could go to sleep. That was not to be, however. A few minutes later, a man I had never seen before left the walkway of the building accompanied by a woman I recognized as one of the residents of apartment #413. Upon seeing us, however, he very heatedly made clear that he was unhappy with us, also saying (pardon my language, but it is a quotation) that if we "ever so much as fucking knocked on [his] door again, [he was] going to beat [our] motherfucking asses down." He seemed to firmly believe that it was his right to keep us from sleeping and not to work with us to achieve an environment in which we could all live in peace (hence my conviction that mediation will get nowhere). We asked him what we had done wrong and what we should have done to rectify the situation, in his opinion, but he was in no mood to be reasonable or to discuss matters. He continued to swear, hurl insults, and threaten us, until eventually the woman managed to talk him into a car and he departed. I was very shaken up by this incident, as I'm sure you'll understand. I am not accustomed to being threatened for trying to settle problems in a civilized and polite fashion. I am not surprised that the neighbors presented you with "discrepancies" in the story. The incident is a very difficult one to excuse, after all. First of all, the gentleman in question appeared extremely intoxicated at the time the physical threats were issued. Neither I nor my guest, who can bear witness to this, were intoxicated. Given, there is no proof that the man was intoxicated, but a sober man acting in the way he did would have great difficulty explaining his violence and confusion. Additionally, I distinctly recall one particular time a few months ago when loud music was issuing from apartment #413 and I went downstairs to ask them to turn it down. A woman answered the door and did turn the music down when I asked her to, but then said, "Aren't you the one who's always playing music?" "No, actually, that's your next-door neighbors," I said, indicating the apartment. She had not bothered to find out who was playing the music that was so annoying her and instead blamed me in her mind. I know it wasn't me because I had frequently had to address the noise issues in the indicated apartment before, and also I didn't own a working stereo at the time, so it was even more unlikely to have been me. So, with that, here are the facts:
These are the facts of the matter. My purpose in calling the apartment office was to let you and the rest of the staff know what type of people are either living in or guests of that apartment. I must confess that I do not think anything can be done to ameliorate the situation, based on the egregious behavior of the gentleman in question. I wish merely to be left alone and not to be "beaten down." I offer as proof of this that I did not call the police back on Saturday and report this threat after the police merely told me that Orange County did not have a noise ordinance and that if I could not sleep in my own apartment or eat dinner in peace, it was none of their affair. I have very much enjoyed my apartment at XXXXXXX. Up until a couple of weeks ago, it was a very nice place to live. But the physical threats and the drug paraphernalia I found on the stairs from apartment #411 and the growing problems of constant car alarms and stereos in the parking lots have made it a far more stressful place to live. I only wanted to make you aware of the changing situation where I am and to have it officially noted in XXXXXXX's records that either the residents or guests of apartment #413 have threatened my physical well-being because of my commission of a legal act of courtesy and my desire to live in peace. Thank you for your time. Sincerely, Megan L. Brown
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