But You Don’t Live Here

September 29, 2009 at 6:22 am | Posted in the super | 27 Comments

I walk out my apartment and am greeted by a rail thin woman with fried burgundy hair, tight black jeans and a fall-inspired wool striped wool sweater. She smiles warmly at me as though she knows me.

I have never seen this woman before in my life.

She heads downstairs and out the front door. I see her sitting on the marble steps in a patch of sunshine a few minutes later as I am wiping down the smeared glass of the main entrance. I head downstairs to clean the laundry room, then to the maintenance room to grab the ladder and the for rent signs. As I approach the front of the building I hear voices. The mystery woman is talking to two girls, all of whom are sitting on the front steps. I wave to the two new girls who are waiting for me to show them the available apartment and introduce myself, apologizing for not being in my apartment when they buzzed me. Meanwhile mystery lady is there, having yammered on and on about tattoos to them while they waited patiently.

After putting away the ladder, I make my way to the front entrance and let the two girls in. The mystery lady says to them, “There she is! Oh you’ll just love her! She’s great!” She’s talking about me. I say to her a bit baffled and incredulous, “I’m sorry. Do I know you?” She smiles and says, “YEAH! I’m Heidi. From upstairs.” She points with a bony finger to the top of the building.

I have never rented a unit to this woman.

I only saw this woman minutes before as she came down from the top floor. That is it. I’m very good with faces and names. I would remember.

The girls and I head inside and they breathe an audible sigh of relief saying that she was WEIRD and was talking their ears off about a bunch of nonsense. She apparently was trying but failing to remember my name. (How does she know my name!?) I apologize and tell them that she does not live in the building. We all kind of look at each other quizzically, confused as to why she’s acting like she lives here. I show them the available unit, we chat and they go. That’s when I run into the Music Man who has appointed himself Building Guard & Gossip (a side service). He bursts out with,

“Did you hear what happened this morning?”

“No, what?”

He sits down on the top step leading into the maintenance room and dives right in, “I was heading out of the building when I encountered a woman sobbing hysterically on the second floor landing steps. She was bleeding from the hands and was acting as though she’d just been choked. She couldn’t catch her breath. She reeked of alcohol! I asked her if she needed help but she couldn’t seem to speak. I guided her outside and then called the cops. They arrived- two cars!- but she had headed towards the main street by then. That other girl that lives next to the fighting lesbians saw her too. She’s been in this building before and the cops came then too.”

“What?! When!? ” Wondering internally how do I not hear these things from my apartment. Good Lord.

“A few months back.”

“Well I saw a woman coming from the top floor that I did not recognize. Was she slender with black jeans, a sweater and blunt bangs and fried burgundy hair?”

“YES! YES!”

“Hmmm, she must know someone in the building then because she doesn’t live here. I’ll go ask around on the top floor and see if anyone knows anything. I’m going to CSI this mystery just you watch.”

“Oh thank you sweetie. You’re such a doll. And so good at your job. And you just look so PRETTY.” He does this. Over-compliments in times of well, always. He always does this.

I head upstairs and start knocking on doors. The first door no one is home. The second door a female tenant in a robe with serious bed head answers and has no idea what I am talking about. The third door gets no response. The fourth door opens and V says that YES he did see that woman earlier when his wife left. He said, “This is going to seem strange but I have to demonstrate how she looked.” He got down on his knees in front of me facing the apartment door, pretending to clutch a cell phone in his hands like he was praying to the Verizon gods. We laughed uneasily at the visual. Mystery Lady AKA Heidi apparently said to his wife as she left, “It isn’t as bad as it looks.” He also said that she had been there before and the cops came then too. And BINGO both times she has been seen with his next door neighbor, whom I will refer to as Twitch.

A Ha! I am totally a detective.

Armed with this new information, I march to Twitch’s door only to discover he is not home (or inside passed out). I call his cell and leave a message. A day goes by with no response. I call again and leave another message. If this nutjob has a key to the building, I need to nip that in the bud pronto. We end up running into each other Monday morning as he is coming in and I am heading out to work. This is how different our lifestyles are.

“I wanted to ask you about someone named Heidi. Do you know her?”

“Yes, she’s a friend of mine. Why what happened?”

I give him the condensed version. “Well apparently she was seen kneeling in front of your apartment door at one point then later choking and sobbing and bleeding from her hands on the second floor landing. A concerned tenant called the cops to get her help. She smelled strongly of vodka.”

Sheepishly he says, “Oh geez. She’s a really sweet lady and she is my friend. She’s been having a rough time of it and didn’t take her medication and instead drank. I’m sorry. She doesn’t have a key to the building. We’d had a fight but it wasn’t a big deal. I went fell asleep and when I woke up she wasn’t there so I got up and locked my door. She must have got locked out and I didn’t hear her knocking because I went back to bed. I’m really embarrassed this happened.”

This is not the first time he has brought someone questionable into the building and it has been brought to my attention. The last guy, high on something, threatened another tenant in the hallway. He’s already been warned.

Putting on my stern but understanding manager voice, “I get that she’s harmless but it does make your neighbors uneasy. I wanted you to know what had happened. I’m trusting you will make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

Clearly uncomfortable, he starts up the stairs backwards saying, “Yes, yes, totally. Sorry again.”

The end.

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27 Comments »

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Clearly both of them need help. Like AA, NA, SA, MA anything ending in “A” kind of help. Doesn’t mean they are bad people, just perhaps a little lost (or a lot lost) on their journey through life.

You do get some of the best stories this way though!

Comment by Vanessa— September 29, 2009 #
Wow. Just… wow.

It’s like your building is Melrose Place on meth or something.

Comment by Mighty Hunter— September 29, 2009 #
I totally want to move in so I can actually meet all these fantastic characters you talk about. Any vacant units, preferably next to pot guy ; )

Comment by andrea— September 29, 2009 #
Wow. Even if she is harmless it would terrify me if I saw all of that.

I only lived in an apartment twice and the people were nowhere near as interesting. Unless you count “note man” who kept leaving notes on my car about random crap. Oh and pot man who flooded his bathroom which seeped into mine. But still, not anything as exciting as yours!

Comment by radioactive tori— September 29, 2009 #
She’s harmless? What does he consider harmful?

Comment by x— September 29, 2009 #
You deserve a huge Christmas bonus or something. Wow.

Comment by Angella— September 29, 2009 #
This is the kind of stuff I used to see in NYC! At least it’s never a dull moment…

Comment by Sara— September 29, 2009 #
Go Sizzle Grissom!

Comment by kapgar— September 29, 2009 #
Heh. That shit is so fucked up.

Comment by Tracy Lynn— September 29, 2009 #
Freaky!

Comment by Ashleigh— September 29, 2009 #
And I was going to guess she was Smell Lady’s friend! That’s creepy and weird, did those girls take the unit? I’m not so sure I’d even want to see it after talking to a strange lady who claims to live there.

Comment by razzlestravels— September 29, 2009 #
I’m gonna just call you Magnum from now on.

Comment by SoMi's Nilsa— September 29, 2009 #
Wow. I don’t miss living in an apartment building. At least my messed up neighbors are on whole separate properties.

Comment by Stacey— September 29, 2009 #
I guess every apartment complex gets to have a few “colorful characters” thrown into the mix. I remember we did at my old apartment.

That drunk lady incident was pretty weird. I don’t know how you do it.

Comment by Iron Fist— September 29, 2009 #
CSI: Sizzle’s Apt Building has a pretty awesome ring to it. So does Book Deal: Sizzle’s Apt Building. (These stories are priceless!)

Comment by Kerri Anne— September 29, 2009 #
Uh, no way to kick this guy out? Or does he have one strike left? Because that’s not fair to the other tenants.

In other news, I now dub you CSI Sizzle.

Comment by Marie— September 29, 2009 #
Hmm, who is this complimentary Music Man? I must be forgetting posts about him.

WTF. That dude better not have crazy chick over again. Although, the story was very entertaining!

Comment by kilax— September 29, 2009 #
There must be some kind of wormhole connecting your building to a parallel universe in which Heidi does in fact live there. And that universe is called CRAZY.

Comment by Cheryl— September 29, 2009 #
yikes, that just sounds crazy all around. very weird.

Comment by katelin— September 29, 2009 #
Your building could be a reality show.

Comment by justrun— September 29, 2009 #
I feel sad for people who are stuck in a bad way like that, but you can’t have your other tenants feeling upset or scared, either. Tough situation, but it sounds like you at least allowed this guy (and the woman) their dignity. Which makes you awesome.

Comment by willikat— September 29, 2009 #
Um, creepy. And, intriguing!

Comment by rhiannonw— September 29, 2009 #
Weird!!! Creepy all in one!
I agree with Justrun… reality show would be awesome!

Comment by gibsondog— September 30, 2009 #
His explaination still doesn’t really explain why she was acting like she knew you… What was THAT all about?!

Comment by Amity— September 30, 2009 #
Can’t say you lead a boring life… yikes!

Comment by sue— September 30, 2009 #
Crrreepy!!!! That Twitch guy sounds suspicious.

Comment by Beyond Alice— September 30, 2009 #
Man, I hope that IS the end.
Suddenly I am *slightly* less annoyed about my downstairs neighbor and his Real Life Drum Set.
*Slightly*.

Comment by wafelenbak— September 30, 2009 #

Sizzle Says