Saturday, July 27, 2013

Why? Goodness, Why?

The guy downstairs across the hall and the people kiddie corner to our balcony are both terrible people. Every night they get into loud fights with their girlfriends about who-knows-what and it results in lots of yelling and door slamming. If you're following me on Facebook I'm sure you can find at least half a dozen posts of me complaining about the door slamming since these people have moved in several weeks ago.

With our windows shut and the AC on we're not privy to the yelling, so I had no idea how bad it was. I have heard our friends who moved in across from us complain about it every now and then. I've been taking care of their doggies while they're out of town; at their place I can for some reason hear all of the yelling. The horrible, yelling. Two people talking to each other like no two people should ever talk to each other even if they were enemies -- and these are supposed to be couples choosing to live together out of love.

Tonight was apparently the end of days in domestic abuse town when three loud door slams preceded my walking over to their place to walk the dogs. Door slamming was typical so I just shrugged it off and went on over thinking nothing of it. While there I could hear these people yell at each other all the way through the courtyard. She was finally leaving him. He was going back and forth between begging her to stay and chastising her. Winning combination.

Meanwhile, across from their apartment the girl's boyfriend was standing outside the door with his head against the wall like a weirdo. "WTF is that about?" I thought as I walked by. Apparently she had thrown him out. Not five minutes later he burst back into the apartment when she cracked the door to hand him his things and was trying to murder her, or something. There was violence, and shrieking. She started screaming for help. The heroes in the apartment below her, total strangers, rushed to her rescue. He was dragged outside and she was able to lock him out while they called the police on her behalf.

I was standing outside trying to get the dogs to poop when the guy from upstairs ran downstairs to the other domestic abuse household for a place to stay? Only, turns out, two domestic abusers don't get along just because they share domestic ambusing in common. The guy from the downstairs apartment called him obscenities and threw him out. The heroes urged me back inside. I wasn't about to argue, only I still had our friend's dogs so I had to go back into their house instead of my own.

Only one of two dogs got to to their business and I wound up trapped in our friend's apartment for an hour for safety while the police sorted the matter out. Hopefully there isn't an accident because of it, though I'm sure they understand -- they're far more familiar with this violence than I am. And hopefully no one dies tonight. Either way, I don't see these new additions to our neighborhood lasting long.

Update: Last night as Aaron and I were going to fetch late night dinner, we had to pass the downstairs couple who were out in the courtyard still having their dispute. She was trying to leave, and he was holding her wrists so that she couldn't. Eventually he managed to wrangle her back inside. Only the moment he wasn't looking she booked it, got into the van, and left with him yelling behind her, powerless.

I was relieved to see that early this morning when I went to tend our friend's dogs that the van was still gone. It's therefor much to my dismay that I now see the van has returned. Looks like we'll be reliving this tragedy-waiting-to-happen for a while yet. Tonight, I will call the police. I had no idea the circumstances surrounding all the door slamming down there. I thought it was just tempers flaring. I didn't realize there were actual physical altercations taking place.

Domestic violence hits home for me, it returns me to a very dark hopeless place. Please guys, if you have "those" neighbors, call the police. Don't just ignore it. Even if they seem perturbed, trust me, you're doing both of them an enormous favor.

Update: As an aside, at least the dog didn't have an accident.

3 comments:

  1. When she left, she probably forgot that she left her kid behind when she took off in the van.

    Also, thanks for watching the dogs. Seems like we missed the great season finales of As our World Burns.

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    1. Does she have a kid? I've never seen one down there. Just a lot of cats. They have like three of them, and two kittens.

      And happy to help, they were very well behaved.

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    2. If only our neighbors were so well behaved!

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