My friend is suspicious of his neighbor ... should he notify the authorities?

Great Debates
1

I’m sticking this here, rather than in IMHO, because I imagine it could get out of hand pretty quickly (and I’m not asking opinions on which brand of toothpaste I should buy…).

My friend called me from Newton, Mass. (a suburb of Boston), this AM. He’s a paranoid guy, and he’s aware of it, which is why he turns to me often, as I’m more cool-headed and rational. He and his wife just moved into the first floor of a two-story house in a predominantly Italian neighborhood. Their upstairs neighbor is a police officer.

About two weeks ago, a tenant moved into the basement. Now, the basement, which has just been renovated, has one room plus a bathroom. No kitchen. And the landlords frequently have to come into the basement apt. to check on the furnace, etc. The monthly rent is about $650. The tenant is a man, in his 30s, of apparently Middle Eastern origin (my friend admits he has no idea where–could be anywhere from Egypt to India… “Hell, I’m Filipino and I can’t even identify other Filipinos,” he tells me). My friend has heard that the tenant works at a nearby bank. The few times my friend has passed the tenant outside the house, the fellow hasn’t been terribly friendly, and always in a hurry.

So that’s all the data. Inevitably, whenever anyone visiting my friend hears about the downstairs neighbor, they say, “Oh my God! He’s probably a terrorist!” My friend shrugs it off, but he’s heard it so many times from so many people–and now the news all weekend was focused on how terrorists may be planning new strikes, or may be renting apts. so they can blow them up–that he’s obsessing about it.

Personally, I think he’s probably just some recent immigrant with little cash and no credit–which is what my friend assumes, too, but then he tells me that he also thinks, “Right now, there’s probably a terrorist somewhere in the country, living in an apartment under someone like me, and people are going to get hurt because nobody said anything.” Of course, if I thought like that all the time, I could never live in my neighborhood, as this tenant’s situation describes how probably half of my Queens, NY, neighborhood lives.

So … should my friend tip off the authorities that they might want to check this fellow out? Or should he just leave the poor guy alone?

2

Leave him alone! Unequivocally and absolutely with no argument to the contrary. He has done nothing suspect that warrants attention from any authority. He has a job an apartment, and is apparently legally in the country. Hell this is how I used to live. Prudence is one thing - hysteria another.

3

Probably a terrorist? Notify the authorities? Because he’s unfriendly and in a hurry? Hell, then you’d better turn me in too, along with 95% of the population of New York City and New Jersey! The fact that he looks like an arab doesn’t change that.

What your friend should do is mind his own f-ing business and leave his neighbor alone. If unfriendly is such a problem for your friend, maybe he should try acting friendly to the neighbor, instead of calling the police. Sounds like he’s the one being unfriendly.

4

So, what exactly is so suspicious about this tenant?

B

5

Er, my post got cut off. The second line should have read:

Being “Middle Eastern” and unfriendly isn’t indicative of anything.

Sounds like paranoia to me.

6

The authorities investigate suspicious persons and acts all the time. The problem here is that there’s nothing suspicious – there is only the fact that he appears Middle Eastern that bothers others. Do you think the local PD is going to background check him and do survelliance based on that?

Being Middle Eastern is not a crime. Leave the guy alone.

7

You’d better call the police, and fast. I can see the headlines now: Man Rents Apartment; Uninterested In Befriending Neighbours. Your friend will be a hero to the local community.

:rolleyes:

Since when has being a standoffish person of unclear ethnic origin been grounds for a tip-off to the authorities that you may be a terrorist? Sure, keep an eye out for suspicious behaviour, but you’ve got nothing here. I’m mildly unfriendly to my (right hand) neighbours too, because they look like trashy degenerates, and I don’t want to befriend them. I’m most certainly not planning on blowing up anything.

8

Well, glad I put this in GD.

Umm, yeah. As I said, the only reason my friend is now obsessing over this is because EVERY SINGLE F-ING PERSON he has mentioned the situation to has said to him, “Oh my god, he sounds like a terrorist! Who the hell else would live in an apt. with no kitchen?” My friend didn’t think twice about it before then, and has told all of these people that they’re crazy.

(And lest we freak out about him mentioning his neighbor to other people, period–the reason the subject of his downstairs neighbor kept coming up was b/c he was never informed that there would be a downstairs tenant when he signed the lease, and the soundproofing is so poor that he can hear EVERY WORD anyone speaks downstairs. So he was concerned that noise would be a major problem. As it stands, the tenant is quiet as a churchmouse, and has therefore been a godsend. )

9

And your neighbor writes home to his family:

I hate my new home. All the neighbors stare at me, and everyone acts as if they are afraid I am some criminal. I wish I was able to come back, and sit with my friends in the market place, chatting happily, yelling at my neighbors as they shout in return. Everyone here is so distant, so formal, it seems hostile.

I have two jobs now, and will be able to send more money home, as soon as I pay back the moneylenders for my fare to the US. Send my love to all in our village, I think of them each night, as I go to sleep.

Ahmad.

Tris

10

If no one was going to rent an apartment without a kitchen, why did the landlord renovate it?

11

Well, toadspittle, no offence, but you’ve told us that your friend tends to be paranoid, and that you’re (one of) his most level headed friend(s), and you needed to ask us if it was reasonable to report a guy to the cops for being possibly arab, so I’m guessing many of his other friends could also be described as paranoid?

Ok, that’s probably sounding a bit harsh, so I’m amend my statement to add that many people are frequently unreasonable. How many of you have non-internet friends who vow that every moment you spend online, you allow cyberhackers to infiltrate your life, steal your identity, track you down and kill you? Think about it. All you have on this guy is that he’s arab-looking, quiet, lives alone and seems shy. Hardly grounds to report him for anything. There’s nothing wrong with being vigilant, and if anything suspicious was ever to happen, then involve the authorities, but why pick on the lonely guy living in the basement just because your friend thought he was supposed to be the only tenant?

Two questions: 1) Why wouldn’t a terrorist need a kitchen? 2) If no one (except terrorists) would live in an apartment without a kitchen, then why would any landlord install an apartment without providing a kitchen?

Finally - people have looked upon Arabs as the enemy since Sept 11. They are being treated with suspicion and hostility all over the place, because people are afraid. It’s no surprise to me that this neighbour is quiet and unfriendly - he’s probably had a lot to deal with in the last 8 months.

12

Yes, it’s called not letting the extremely few nutjobs run the asyluum.

13

Seems like a pretty one sided debate…until now. Hey, it’s a different world now folks. I don’t think the authorities would do squat if your pal reported the neighbor, but that doesn’t mean your pal has to turn a blind eye towards the guy. Let’s all be realists here, the events of September 11 were perpetrated by single, thirty something males of middle eastern descent. It appears that future attacks are planned, and those future attacks may very well be pulled off by single, thirty something males of middle eastern descent. Simply due to the fact that Al-Queda draws from that group.

No less than Condaleeza Rice has stated that now is the time for Americans to be vigilant. Does this mean we should keep a close eye on Mildred, our 82 year old neighbor? I don’t think so. I’d love to take the high road and say that “Mildred” should get the exact same treatment as “Khalid”, but I know that won’t be the case. People will be particularly paranoid of men who fall within that age/race for sometime to come. Not without reason. Though the chances are infinitesimal that this guy is a terrorist, the chances are still greater that he is than Mildred is (this coming from a guy that lived a mile away from SLA terrorist Kathleen Soliah).

So my message to your pal is, don’t bother reporting the guy, it’ll go nowhere. But can he look at the FBI website to see if he looks like any of the wanted terrorists? yep. Can he maybe keep a seed of doubt in his brain and keep an eye on the guy for any suspicious activity? Youbetcha, Condaleeza said he could. Can he sit on his roof in a lawn chair and watch the guy through high powered binoculars? Hell, that’s what my neighbor Mr. Fuller did when I was growing up, there aint anything illegal about it, but it sure is creepy. Tell your friend to have some common sense. Can he break into the guy’s apartment to look for evidence? Nope.

A few things make me think he isn’t. 1. A terrorist would be stupid to get a cop as a landlord. 2. Large numbers of programmers from India have been hired by banks all over the US, and banks do substantial background checks. 3. Single guys don’t have a huge need for kitchens.

14

I see nothing to be suspicious of here. I mean, sure, he could be a terrorist, but then again, we all could.

Your friend should try to befriend the guy. Bring him some cous cous, or something. Not to “check him out”, but to be just, you know, neighborly. Be the “welcome wagon”. The guy might be really nice, maybe just homesick.

15

never uses her virtually non-existent (no oven, no microwave) kitchen and hasn’t planned any plane hijackings or carbombings yet

http://www.TerroristsAgainstKitchens.com

16

NurseCarmen: *Let’s all be realists here, the events of September 11 were perpetrated by single, thirty something males of middle eastern descent. *

Come again? AFAIK, at least three of them were married with several children each.

Also, the OP says his friend isn’t even sure that the neighbor actually is of “Middle Eastern descent”—he could be from India, North Africa, or anywhere they have brown-skinned, black-haired, sorta-“Mediterranean”-featured people. Hell, we haven’t even heard that he knows that the guy is Muslim!

toadspittle’s friend’s neighbors say: “Oh my god, he sounds like a terrorist! Who the hell else would live in an apt. with no kitchen?”

:confused: Surely, if your friend lives in a thriving Boston suburb like Newton, the people he talks to must have some notion that the housing market in that area is a little, um, unusual? As in, it costs a dick and a ball, you should pardon the expression, to rent damn near ANYTHING? Certainly the fact that your friend’s donstairsiker (to revive a useful Yiddish term :)) is paying $650 per month for a single room with bath in a freaking basement with no soundproofing should maybe tip them off. If I had to find housing in the Boston area, heaven forbid, I probably wouldn’t be able to afford a kitchen either.

I concur with cazzle and istara in bewilderment about why anyone should assume a terrorist doesn’t need a kitchen or wouldn’t bother renting one. In fact, AFAICT, many of the Sept. 11 hijackers lived in very nice places and had plenty of money at their disposal.

To round out my bafflement, I don’t understand why it would be considered a good strategy for terrorists to “be renting apts. so they can blow them up”. According to all the evidence I’ve heard of, U.S. terrorist plots tend to be much more directed to large-scale operations against big and heavily-populated targets. Do you really think it likely that they’d prefer to have their members risk detection and arrest (even if they didn’t lose their own lives in the bombing) for the sake of an act of destruction that could be more or less duplicated by any drunken disgruntled ex-boyfriend with a can of gasoline and a match?

17

My favorite rejoinder to the “single Muslim looking guys of certain age” is that Ossama his own little self wouldn’t fit that description.

Kimstu (natch’) is correct - when one sees the pics of the folks suspected of blowing up the planes, what we can get from that = male, dark hair, dark eyes. Skin tones varied substantially. Matches a hefty percentage of the population, including my brother.

and, of course, of recent note, some of the suicide bombers were female, some children.

YEa, I’d wait 'til the guy actually did something suspicious.

18

You know, if my grandfather were still alive, people would be looking at him funny, because he was swarthy looking male, with a five o’clock shadow.

(And he was Hungarian).

:mad:

19

And don’t forget the Oaklahoma bombing. Be on the lookout for white males of American descent. :rolleyes:

20

I used to live in a basement apartment with no kitchen to speak of. (There was a fridge in the living room, and a sink, a stove, and some cupboards in a closet.) I have a beard, odd political views, and I didn’t talk to the other tenants.

Fortunately for my non-terrorist reputation, I stayed in that apartment all summer and maintained my Canadian-white-boy winter pallor, so that may have helped.

Honestly, this is like when Hamish got yelled at constantly for a month after Columbine for having black hair and a black coat.