My neighbors have developed this distasteful habit of leaving the bottom door unlocked whenever they go anywhere.
Backtrack. Begin again. The saga is a little more involved than last night's incident.
The two second floor apartments in my house share an entryway on the side porch. So we have one common key for the bottom door, and our own keys for our apartments. This bottom door is old and kind of crummy, but it's still a barrier, particularly because it's noisy and you have warning when anyone comes and goes. I've had problems with its lock before...like the time it fell out, and I had to call the AL to come and screw it back in. But it's got a couple of interesting latching features -- the one where if you push it one way from the inside, a person on the outside can't unlock it, even with a key; and the one where if you push it the other way from the inside, it stays unlocked.
My neighbors like that feature.
They tend to forget their keys. Two months ago they forgot them so often that they became masters at jimmying the lock to their upstairs apartment door. I would watch them through the peephole and thank all my nurturing as a paranoid cop's daughter that I had made the AL install a deadbolt on my door when I moved in (I've been told that my door, with all its locks and chains, resembles that of a New York apartment). They borrowed my kitchen knives on a couple of occasions when their hairpins or whatever didn't do the trick. And when that failed, they invented their own backdoor, thanks to the broken-down basement door.
Side-story. Two and a half months ago, someone (we all think it was the neighbor's boyfriend, whom I've never found personally threatening, but who has beaten the living crap out of the neighbor on occasion) broke down the basement door. Why? We don't know. Nothing valuable was taken from the basement. The only things stolen over the course of two months were garden tools and my beer. Oh yes, my beer. And of course the AL took his sweet time fixing the damn door. I finally called and chewed him out because
Loop-around. They couldn't get back into their apartment one night, so they went into the basement and brought up a ladder. They leaned the ladder against the roof and climbed in through a window. They then proceeded to leave the ladder up at all times, giving them and anyone else who wanted direct access to my own bedroom window. I, of course, freaked. I tersely told the AL what was happening (he said that they said they were using the ladder to "clean their windows" -- "No, they're using it for a back door when they forget their keys," I snapped), had Kevin lock the ladder in his apartment, and arranged with the AL to rent the basement all to myself for a ridiculously cheap price so that nobody else could be down there. He finally padlocked the door. I am the princess.
Fast forward. The neighbors have still been leaving the bottom door unlocked. Annoying, but not too frightening, so I called the AL and asked him to talk to them about it, which he said he'd do "if he remembered," meaning he almost certainly forgot as soon as he hung up the phone. I've privately fumed about it a little, but figuring it wasn't too big a deal, I just clicked the latch back to the lock position whenever I noticed it was unlocked, and went about my business.
Begin story. Last night at 11:45 p.m. as I was getting ready for bed, I heard someone start to pound on the bottom door. Since it wasn't accompanied by the boyfriend shouting to be let in, I knew it probably wasn't the neighbors, and they seldom have visitors. (I really do get along with them, by the way. These spurts of weird drama are few and far between, and most of the time I enjoy having them around. They're entertaining and generally good-natured.) The pounding went on for a few minutes while I waited tensely in the bathroom.
And then...I heard the bottom door open. And someone (two someones) came up the stairs. I slipped to the peephole to see -- yes -- the back of an unfamiliar man's head in my stairwell.
Disbelieving is an apt word for how I felt at that moment. This shady guy just walked right up the stairs to the neighbor's door. Just walked right. up. the stairs. No one has EVER done that in the two years I've lived there. They knocked on her door for a minute, then left. At that point, I was feeling that my space had been violated. I was feeling a little frightened. I waited till I heard the car pull out of the driveway, then I grabbed my Maglite, the really big one that could break someone's skull, and with rising ire and the question How did they get in? Did they break the door down? Or...? beating time with the blood in my head, I shut off the stair light (damn the neighbors for always leaving the stairwell lights on at night, are they retarded, don't they know that anyone outside can see anyone inside when the lights are on?), tiptoed down the stairs and examined the lock. Unlatched. [Insert. Profanities. Here.]
So then I was...furious is a good word. I sat down on the porch and pulled out my phone. I was angry with my neighbors for leaving the fricking door unlocked whenever they go anywhere. I was angry with the AL for being lazy and uncaring. I was angry with those strange creepy men for just walking up into my territory without a by-your-leave. Then -- isn't this stupid? -- I flipped open my phone and hesitated about calling the AL. I actually hesitated about waking him up at close to midnight. Then my brain kicked itself and said What? So I called, and the aftermath of terror gave my voice an extremely short edge as I informed him of what had happened, that the situation was unacceptable, requested him to please speak with the neighbors about leaving the door locked at. all. times, and that if it did happen again I would call the police.
Then I waited up until the neighbors came home and told them that the door had to stay locked whenever they left, because of the two strangers who had just walked up the stairwell. They took it pretty well; they usually do. And I'm a nice person who is generally pretty easy to get along with. So I don't anticipate problems with it in the future.
But sometimes I get so irate with my landlord that I think my head is going to explode.
Oh yes, and the headaches are back.
End story.
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