This week started out with a knock on the door, 10 AM Monday morning, just as I stepped out of the shower.
Wrapping the towel around myself, I peeked through the kitchen window, saw it was again Head Maintenance Guy.
After catching me last week in a state of undress, I couldn’t believe his timing to catch me again.
Upon opening the door just a crack to, once again, hide my state of undress, I uttered, "OH NO!" (like What Now?).
"Oh Yes", said he. "When I saw I had to bother you again, I went dammit, but they want me to retake the photos of the water heater".
Telling him I’d just gotten out of the shower, he said he’d come back, which he did about 30 minutes later.
On the off chance this might happen again, to ease his feeling bad about "bothering" me, and so I won’t have to worry about being caught unawares again, when he returned, I told him that the magic time is 11 AM, that I’m usually dressed and ready for the world around 11 AM.
Fortunately, there were no interruptions this morning. I was able to breakfast and dress at leisure, before heading out to run errands.
It was after 11 AM when I headed out, Kesha usually arrives at 11, so I picked up mail in the mailroom, so I could detour through the Community Room to see if Kesha had been dismissed or showed up today.
Thus far, she still has a job but for how long because, without pizzas to draw residents to the Community Room, the place was dead — there was only Kesha and Upstairs Lady — the resident that pushed my Witch Button, at the 4th of July event, and remains someone I won’t engage with.
We’ll see what the room looks like next Tuesday.
Returning to the complex, after running errands, I found in the mail I’d picked up an envelope from a company I’d never heard of, indicating the contents was a survey of some sort. My first reaction was to run it through the shredder. However, curiosity got the best of me, so I opened and found $2 cash money.
Who does that?
Who sends money through the mail as a bribe to complete a survey and, inasmuch as the envelope was addressed to the "resident" at my address, how many others in the complex received money in the mail and, of those receiving, how many immediately tossed in the mailroom’s junk mail container, rather than check the contents?
I might have done that myself — tossed in the trash, except I prefer shredding anything with my name or address on it.
At any rate, suspicious human that I am, thinking the money might be counterfeit, I researched the sender.
Turns out the sender is an independent nonprofit "created by Congress to establish philanthropic and private-sector partnerships to improve the public’s health and safety. Clean air, safe water and access to nutritious food, among other priorities, are essential to keeping people healthy and safe and ensuring our economy remains strong and stable".
They "conduct various national surveys to study public health trends, behaviors, and outcomes" and, "To encourage participation in these lengthy surveys, the foundation may mail small amounts of cash (e.g., $2 or $5) to potential respondents".
"You are typically allowed to keep the cash even if you choose not to participate in the survey".
Since I’m under no obligation, I’ll skip the survey, keep the cash, add the dollars to the money box I’ll be making for this year’s Christmas Party’s White Elephant Gift.
I’d really be interested to know who else around here received cash in the mail, but with Pizza Tuesdays now dead in the water, where us residents get an opportunity to get together and chat, it’s not likely I’ll see any of the Usual Suspects for a long long time.
Besides, even though the source of the cash looks legit, one never knows if the survey is for sure not scammers, attempting to gain sensitive information.
Better safe than sorry
Just as I was wrapping up today's post, I decided to go back to the mailroom, check the junk mail container for envelopes tossed by other residents — more dollars for the money box. There were none, but I’d also stopped by the car to retrieve something I’d left inside.
Seeing a resident standing still on the walkway, starring at something, I passed, asked what’s going on.
"Just watching them clear out the hoarder’s unit. They even have a hazmat team in there".
"Whose unit is that", asked I, and when he said it was Lu’s unit, my mouth flew open. I was genuinely shocked.
"LU'S A HOARDER!?"
"Oh big time", said he. "They’re even out back, throwing away stuff from her garage".
"Does she know? I’ve seen that show Hoarder, and those people get really upset, violent sometimes when people touch their stuff".
"She’s in there", said he.
How embarrassing for Lu.
I can only assume the condition of Lu’s unit was exposed when that State Inspector selected her unit, like he did mine, for inspection.
I passed inspection, she did not, and Management — who had to have known all along about the hoarding conditions from the various pre-inspections over the however many years, but was hoping her unit would not be inspected (it wasn't for years) was forced to give Lu an ultimatum when the Inspector chose units that hadn't been State inspected for a long time, like mine and Lu's.
I am so shocked. You can’t even imagine.
Funny thing is, when heading out this morning, I saw the truck and a crew removing junk from a unit in that quad. Didn’t think anything of it, but took a photo of the truck company, just in case I needed junk removal services in the future.
That's a big truck, and it's filled to the brim already around 11:20 in the morning.
Now learning there was a truck out back (5 PM), people clearing out Lu's hoard from the garage, I walked on over and took a photo of that truck, also filled to the brim.
Looks like they've been carting away tons.
Shocking.
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