Keep your damned kid from roaming the halls of our apartment building late at night running, screaming and playing with her other friends.
Pitted this a couple of months ago, and it’s not only started up again, it’s gotten worse.
I moved into this building in late April.
These people moved into their unit in June, after the previous people moved out in the middle of the night (2-4am over the course of two nights).
In July, their kid, a 9-10 year old girl, started running the halls every night from 10pm until midnight or sometimes later. Yelling, screaming, slamming doors, etc.
July 20-ish, whatever the Sunday was, I stepped out into the hall at 11:55pm and let her know this shit was going to stop. It did, for about a month and a half. Then it started up slowly again.
September 20-ish, whatever the Tuesday was, I stepped out in the hall at 11:25pm and let her have it again. This time her mother came out, screaming and swearing at her and the world, and banged on my door. When I came out, she changed her tune, politely asked me not to swear at her kid (after I’d just heard her swear a blue streak at the kid) and gave me a bullshit story about how she had NO IDEA that any of this was going on, she’d just gotten home, blah blah blah, and this would never happen again.
I spoke to our office, who acted all shocked and surprised and had a chat with mommy, who claimed that nothing of the kind every happened, her kid was home every night and she had no idea what I was on about.
But we had another month and a half break until it started up in early-mid November again. This time, when I stepped out in the hall at 11:15pm, mommy-brain-dead heard my door open. When I stepped back inside, she ran out into the stair well, caught her daughter coming up and, 10 feet from my door, coached her daughter on how to say that she had been in her room all night.
I spoke to the office again. They gave me an after-hours number to call if it was still happening. Two days later I called, because the kids came running, screaming and slamming doors at about 11:50pm, followed by mommy running out into the hall, having a meltdown and then peeling out of the parking lot at high speed. The after hours guy strolled by about 20 minutes later, well after everything had settled down.
Three days ago, I called again, and got the after-call guy’s wife, who came noisily running down the hall and surprise surprise, didn’t see the kids. It helped so much that she CALLED ME BACK before she got here. My neighbors heard my phone ringing (I was by the door), ran inside their apartment and turned off the lights.
She recommend that I get a digital camera that recorded the date and time and take a picture of the kids in the hall next time it happened. I’d been loath to do this since I am a 47 year old single male and we’re talking about a bunch of 7-10 year old girls here.
Last night I was in bed. Two girls came screaming up the stairs, stopped at the landing just below our floor and were carrying on there. The stair well is just on the other side of the wall from my bedroom, which is why this is such a problem for me. I got up, threw on my clothes, grabbed my cell phone, put it into camera mode and stepped into the hall. I snapped a picture of the two girls just as they got to the door. Time Stamp: 11:56pm.
Girl goes running inside screaming for mom. Mom comes out and starts hammering on my door while I’m calling the on-call guy. On call guy says he’ll come over, mentions that he kicked them out of the common areas when he was locking up at 10:40pm and told them to go home.
Five minutes later, there is another knock on my door. Thinking it was the on-call guy, I opened the door to find mommy dearest and her husband in the hall, screaming at me. Claiming that their child was just coming home from her friend’s apartment (which I guess explains why the friend was with her and why they were playing in the stair well.)
Vague threats to do something to me if I ever take another picture of their child. (I admit, I would find it creepy too and don’t blame their reaction, but still…) I counter by telling them that I have been instructed by the office to do this and that the on-call guy is already on his way over. At this, husband goes from looking like he’s going to come into my apartment after me, to apologetic. Says that we don’t need to have a confrontation in the hall and that he will take care of things.
We’ll see how things go tonight. I’m prepared for retaliation, I’m prepared for more lies. I’m prepared to go into the office at 9am tomorrow and talk to them about it, and I’m prepared to go from there to the police department to have a chat with them about it too.
If these were adults running up and down the hall every night, I’d have just called the cops straight off, and if it went on this long with no help from them or the office, I’d eventually step out and kick their asses. But these are kids, and IDIOT parents who are not only allowing this bullshit, but lying about it to boot.
