A Twice-Told Tale

I was working on a post about how things went at the dealership this morning, and how I saw a jackrabbit when I took the car in for diagnostic and service.

However, seeing comments to my last post asking if management had contact information, I thought I’d tell you what ran through my head last night about things I began remembering. Things management had done after a resident died.

Let me start off by saying management is frustratingly redundant. They are constantly sending us forms to update. The same forms over and over and over. Forms that somehow don’t make it to our files, or maybe do make it to the files but it’s easier for them to have us resubmit multiple times or call and ask a redundant question or toss belongings in the trash than refer to forms that are supposed to be in our file.

Even though I’ve been filling out the Permission to Enter form with YES for the entire 10 years I’ve been living here — so they do not have to call me for permission to enter when I submit a work order, it never fails that I’ll get a phone call asking if the guys have permission to enter.

Not to mention, how often we’ve been required to resubmit Emergency Contact Information.

Frustrating through it is to fill out and resubmit and resubmit and resubmit, I promptly do so, but have learned to make a photocopy because they lose the form, accuse us of not submitting.

I even experienced that when I once walked into Assistant Manager’s open office door, placed the requested updated form in her hand — so there would be no mistake. Then, days later, got a 2nd request for the form I’d filled out and placed in her hand.

As for Contact Information, it’s entirely possible there may not be a family member on some of the forms, but someone is listed — a caregiver, a friend, someone.

Long time readers may recall the suspicious death of Apache’s neighbor back in 2018.

A double amputee (both legs), he was found in his unit with bruises on his chest.

Assistant Maintenance Guy and one of the temporary workers had entered his unit at least a week prior to his body being discovered, saw him sleeping peacefully, didn’t realize he was dead, did what inspection they were there to do and left.

Once his death was discovered, a week after that (dead two weeks) Apache was interviewed by the police and reported that the guy had a new caretaker, and the caretaker had not been reporting for duty. Consequently, with the bruising, the absent caretaker, the police were looking at it as a suspicious death.

When Apache saw management promptly doing their usual process of tossing belongings into the trash, he retrieved books, tapes, called the guy’s brother.

When the brother arrived to claim his brother's possessions, all that remained was furniture and kitchen appliances, Management told him the unit had already been rented to someone on the wait list, someone who "had nothing" and needed what furniture and appliances were remaining.

The brother let it go.

There was a lot of grumbling on the complex when the new tenant arrived, rolling up in a Jeep, because word on the street was the brother had given up the furniture because it was to go to someone in desperate need.

What I heard at the time was "Just how needy can she be driving a $35,000 car?"

Before that, there was the time when mean Nurse Ratched was our manager. A family showed up to claim their deceased family member’s belongings and, for whatever reason, Nurse Ratched refused them admittance to the unit, called the cops, had the family escorted off the property.

It was Karma when, a few years after, her boss showed up with the police, boxed up her office belonging and had the police escort HER off the premises for financial improprieties — stealing, cooking the books.

More recently, there was the way Cat Lady’s eviction was handled.

The Tyrant (Manager No. 8) had her car towed off the premises, had the cops put her on the streets, rolled all her beautiful walnut and glass furniture — armoires, tables, etc., down the walkway to their units, tossed what they didn’t want in the trash.

She had family; people that could have been called.

I’ve advised Twin 1, Twin 2, Granddaughter of how management operates, given them keys to my unit, told them to grab the photo albums and books because some of the books are valuable.

There’s a story behind the hope chest in the middle of the area rug, so family may want to keep that.

Management can have at whatever is left AFTER, not before.

So, there you have it, a twice-told tale that probably happens wherever vulnerable seniors exist.

Research continues on finding Bonita’s family members.

I wonder if anyone, other than us, knows she’s died.

In addition to messaging the four facebook friends (no response yet), I saw a photo of a young girl. On the back of the photo was her name, age 6, the year 1968, and Deadwood, South Dakota.

I figured she be about 54 years old now, probably had married, changed her last name BUT took a chance she might be progressive — kept her maiden name. So, putting the name and Deadwood, South Dakota in google, I landed on a business website and photo of a woman that looked like she very well could be the child all grown up.

What do you think?

Same jawline, same smile.

At any rate, I emailed the circumstances of my contact, ended with "Is this you? It looks like it could be".

No response yet.

I’m not giving up. There’s lots more stuff to go through, look for names, when time permits.