Bad man upstairs

The BBQ Pit
1

I was asleep. For people with day jobs, this is a legitimate thing to do at 3:45 am.

My suite is on the ground floor. The back stairs to the upper suite are right outside my bedroom, and I can hear people going up and down all the time. It wakes me up, sure, but I just roll over and go back to sleep.

Except when they can’t get in the door. Or when they try to get in the window. Or when they go up and down the stairs repeatedly in just a few minutes. Or when they swear a lot - loudly.

So, now I am awake, and thinking about this. The upstairs tenants have scarpered without paying the rent. There is no reason for anyone to be trying to get in at - yawn - 4 am. So what’s going on? I get up, move through my suite with lights off, and check all the windows. There is a car in the driveway, idling, while someone is getting something long and metallic out of the trunk. :eek:

Time to call the cops. I give the useful info, and the nice lady asks me whether these people know I’m up. I doubt it, I tell her. Then I hear a weird metallic scraping, from my front window. They are using a ladder to get in. She says to me, keep your voice down, leave the lights off, and hang tight - the officers are right there. Sure enough, flashlights, yelling, et cetera. Eventually, an officer comes to my front door, and tells me they have apprehended a very Bad Man trying to break in upstairs, what background info can I tell the police about this? Why does the place appear vacant? Do I recognise such-and-such vehicles?

Well, I told him what I knew: that the tenants upstairs had vacated the place in the past two weeks, that the names on the lease are Ms. Tenant and Mr. Tenant, that the vehicles I had reported to 911 had not been there when I went to bed, and that I didn’t recognise the one I could see clearly when I peeked out the back.

The officer tells me that the Mr. Tenant I had named was their Bad Man. That he is very well-known to police. Do I know a 60-year-old woman named Helen? Um, no, why? She’s the owner of the car I didn’t recognise. Stolen. He’d been curious as to how I knew the terms of the lease, and I told him my father was the landlord, and I was responsible for collecting the rent in my father’s absence (three-week vacation). He told me to stop fussing over collecting the rent as Bad Man “was uncooperative with his money,” but not dangerous. I told him about Bad Man hitting Ms. Tenant, and he did not flicker an eyelash. Either the cop had a great poker-face, or he was not surprised. Not dangerous, my ass.

So it is now 6 am, and I can’t get back to sleep, and I am freaked out. Bad Man definitely has to know who called the cops. Now what?

2

Buy a shotgun. Even in Canada, I believe they are fairly easy to get for ‘home use’, no?

Keep an eye on your car, as well. During my brief stint with the local PD reserves, we answered many a call for slashed tires/smashed windows/etc, stemming from similiar situations. Don’t freak out, but don’t underestimate the potential of the situation, either.

Bit of an odd reaction from the officer, though. Did they at least take the guy in to the station?

3

Vacated… Is all the furniture and their stuff gone? Why are they trying to get in at 4:00 am? Did they stash some drugs in the floor vent they needed to recover, especially considering the fact the car was ideling and they obviously weren’t going to stay?

4

In the basement of an abandoned apartment complex, littered with garbage and the stench of urine lingering in the doorway, a kitten plots its revenge against the bad man…

sanscour

5

Whew. I have never been so glad to hear my father’s voice as I was last night.

Yesterday, when I went into the office and told my manager what had been happening, she made arrangements that I was to be escorted home and taken to stay at a friend’s home overnight, for fear that these people would behave just as Brutus warned me to watch for.

Dad called just as we were clearing out of my place, and so we went there for dinner, and filled him in. He’s going to check the place out today, and start the eviction process. He agreed, however, that I should go to my friends’ home for the night. Mom was sitting there having a connip-shit over the whole thing.

As for whether the guy got run in for questioning, I rather doubt it. There were two males upstairs when I left for work yesterday morning, and breaking into a vacant space where your name is on the lease is stupid, not criminal. I do not have specific information as to what’s happening with the stolen car, as the officer I spoke to told me to stay away from the doors and windows until I left for work in the morning. I did what I was told, and therefore know very little. The RCMP do not tell you what is going to happen to the bad guy, unless he has just beat the crap out of you. All he did was scare me badly, and not even through direct intimidation, and therefore I was not deemed “need to know.”

I am told - by the brother-in-law of Ms. Tenant - that there is nothing left but a chair and some boxes. Dad will know more when he pays them a visit today, I hope.

Mr. Tenant is known to the police as a dealer in stolen goods, from what I can piece together. He told us when moving in that he worked for an auctioneering firm which we knew to have started off as a pawn shop, and one which the police loved to raid. Dad gave him the benefit of the doubt there. If what was in the boxes left upstairs was for “business purposes” they might not want to be seen with it, but that’s just speculation. What I don’t understand is that he has keys. Why not use them?

As far as the kitten is concerned, Sanscour, he’s apparently been abandoned again. I’ll be taking him to the local SPCA for holding, snipping and adoption once things chill out. For the time being, I’m feeding him and keeping him away from my cat, who seems to think he too is a punk. But my housekeeping is not so bad as you suggest… :wink:

6

Not commenting on your places cleanliness or lack thereof sinshine, just making a smartass remark :slight_smile: I am glad to hear that all is fairly well and the kitten is in good hands.

7

Actually, he is!! Dad spoke to one of the hangers’-on today, who said no-one wants the kitten and why haven’t I taken it inside? (As if his kitten was my responsibility. Same guy who I found on my doorstep when I did take the kitten in. Mmmphhm.) So when another next door neighbour came over with the kitten in hands, saying he’d gotten out and could my parents put him back into my place (this neighbour is a good guy), Dad told him the kitten’s history, and Mr. Rogers asked if he could give the kitten to a friend who has been coveting him all week. Hanger-on said yes, Friend has new cat.

I am definitely persona non grata with the collective idiots, but the place is vacant. Dad, however, has not been able to serve either Mr. Tenant (aka Bad Man) or Ms. Tenant with the eviction notice yet - they won’t answer their cell-phones. And until he’s got the keys, and they’ve got their formal notice … the stupidity continues.

I am glad to be home, though. Staying overnight elsewhere to satisfy other people’s senses of drama didn’t sit too well with me, but they all meant well, so why argue?