And Then the Cops Showed Up

Hearing a car horn blaring non-stop around one o’clock this afternoon, unable to decipher if it was my alarm, I talked myself out of going outside to check, figuring someone would call and let me know if it was mine.

After a time, the blaring stopped, but then the blaring proceeded to go on/off for so long that I finally roused myself to take out the trash so I could check whether or not it was my car.

It wasn’t.

I was a jeep parked in the visitor spot going off in an effort to warn its owner a tow truck driver was in the process of carting it off.

After tossing the trash into the dumpster, I headed back to my unit, nuked my coffee and went out onto the patio to watch the show.

Seeing Next Door Neighbor on her patio, also watching the show, I said, "It’s sad when the only entertainment we have around here is watching a car being towed away".

As we watched the show, I observed what looked to be the Jeep’s owner answer the SOS call the jeep had been blaring out.

He opened the jeep, did something inside to turn the alarm off, then began removing personal items from inside and from the trunk area.

At one point, the owner got into a conversation with the tow truck driver.

I couldn’t hear what was being said, but body language indicated it was getting heated as tow truck driver continued to try to hook up the jeep.

As tow truck driver began to pull the jeep from the visitor spot, it looked like he’d gotten too close to the carport structure and was about to not only bring down the structure but damage the jeep in the process. Whereupon, the owner jumped in the jeep, refused to exit.

When I saw the owner’s backup arrive — other young men, expecting things to go sideways, I thought to run back inside, grab my phone, begin recording.

By the time I was in position, Head Maintenance Guy, who it looked like had been called to the scene by tow truck driver had, in turn, summoned manager.

Manager and HMG were standing by watching as tow truck driver argued with owner, still seated in the Jeep.

The resident from whose unit all these young men exited eventually came down.

It looked like manager got all in her face blaming her for the incident. Perhaps asking why she had so many "visitors" in her unit. Probably suspecting the guys were living there.

If manager suspects that, she’d be correct, as I’ve seen one of the guys coming/going on a daily basis for some time.

With manager on the scene blaming resident, owner and his posse backed down.

Owner exited the Jeep, tow truck driver got in, drove the car out of the visitor spot, to where he could tie it up, haul it away without further damage to the carport structure and the Jeep.

And then the cops showed up.

Nobody went to jail, but it didn’t look like manager was happy about the damage tow truck driver had done to the structure.

I can only image what damage was done to the Jeep.

We'll probably get notices posted to our doors about "ghost tenants", young people living here with parents and/or family friends, and a reminder that visitors need parking pass approval from the office to stay overnight.