And so for the past few months I have been living in a house not my home. I know not where my home is, if by ‘home’ you define somewhere you can just kick back, relax and rest.
My mother won’t leave me in peace. For the past few months (as I have ranted elsewhere in the Pit), the residents owing the flat one floor above us have been making a lot of noises. Dragging of furnitures, heavy footsteps and strange thumpings noises. Appeals to the authorities failed. Being friendly with the neighbour upstairs failed. My mum picked a quarrel with the Old Man of the House. That failed too.
But the noises are just the side-dish. The main dish of stress, agony and suffering came from no one else but my dear, esteemed mother. Every single fucking day when she come home she would ask, “Did he make any noises?”. Every single fucking day there would be an occasion she would come to me and say, “What shall I do?”, coupled with the typical wringing of hand.
So I suggested:
- Call the police. “They don’t care. They only go after murderers”
- Call the management. “We did call. It’s no use”
Whenever she whined to me, “What shall we do?” and I say, “Call the authorities” and she would say emphasis it is no use, it’s all hopeless. All her housewife friends told that it is so. She look so frustrated, so tired and so frenzied that I wish she would allow me to do something, but she forbid me from trying anything.
And finally, we moved.
Yes, we moved due to strange noises in the nights and days. Actually,it also due to the smell of shit and urine all over my apartment, but that’s another story.
It was a bad decision, anyway how I looked at it. Our finance is in the red. I am on loan for my undergraduate studies. My sister is holding onto a lowly paid job. And we moved, suffering a big loss in progress.
I don’t know what crack my mum was smoking. (She doesn’t smoke, anyway). I don’t know what the hell have gotten into her head. She was so eager to move that just after looking at a couple of apartments, she plop down a 2-month deposit for a rented flat, and got all of us to move. Mind you, I never had a chance to look at the flat, nor did my sister. We tried to go with her usually, but how can you do that when suddenly in the middle of preparing for a major presentation at school, she just called and ask if you are free?
So she rented the flat without consulting my sister or me.
The packing was hectic. Have you tried moving out in three days notice, in the middle of teeming tutorials and while datelines are screaming at you? Have you moved, knowing full well tomorrow after crating all your stuff, straining your back and arm and having a sleepless night, you still have to work tomorrow?
Yep, that’s the situation. I hated it. Everyone hated it. But my mum just want to get away from the noises and the smell.
That’s not the bad part. The bad part is just now, just as I came home, my mum said she wanted to tell me something. And what did she tell me?
“I am going to tell you something. Please don’t get angry.”
Oh my goodness. I wonder why they have to do this all the time. Telling me not to get angry is good as plucking twelve dozen adrenaline shots into my bloodstream. It’s an invitiation for my heart pressure to shoot upward. How can you not get angry when someone just told you not to, hinting to you that she going to tell you the worst freaking news you have ever heard before? By sheer willpower, of course.
“I think this place is like the old one.”
I evidently don’t have much willpower. I lost it.
“You told it wouldn’t be like that.”
“Do you like the other rented flat which we look at?” was her response.
She went to tell me how exactly our new home is like the old. There are noises upstairs all the time. There are heavy footsteps. Whenever she have done something which produce some noises, there’s always something from upstairs in reply. I hope she’s wrong. But if I am, the it means that she is going mad, and that’s a bad sign too.
“So what do you want me to do?” I ask.
This is what I hate most about this. The “Oh-my-god-things-are-so-sucky-but-don’t-bother-trying-anything” routine.
Listen, mum.
We MOVED.
We PAID.
We WENT FUCKING BROKE
We SUFFERED.
…to be in this new place. I am jolly well going to do something.
“Right, I will go upstairs and explain that we have just moved in. Maybe they think the unit below them is still empty.”
No, no, no. She plead. Don’t do anything of that sort. The owner of the upstair unit must be another Unreasonable Evil Old Man who will do anything to make our life a living hell. I know a generalisation when I see it – I done it so often myself.
“All right, let go to the police.”
No, no, no. The police never care. Unless the Evil Old Man Upstairs happen to be a serial rapist, murderer or something worse.
“Fine, let get the town council.”
No, no, no. We rented this place from someone else. They’ll never care. And we did call in the management last time. It doesn’t work.
And so, lady, what IN THE NAME OF FIERY FLAMES OF DEEPEST HELL DO YOU WANT ME TO DO??
“All right, let find the FREAKY BLOODY PERSON from WHOM we PAID money to RENT THIS IDIOTIC PLACE,” I said (paraphrased).
That calmed her down. For the moment.
If there’s a Power that Be, I’ll like to lodge a formal complaint now. Thanks.
Could it be that she isn’t “young” or “flexible” enough to adapt to apartment life at the age she is now? Maybe you will have to find a modest house to live in to resolve this, if that is the case? (Of course, maybe it’s just senility as others have wondered, and she’ll do similar things watching neighbors in a house too?)