July 19th, 2005
"Mother Nature always bats last"
-American proverb
* * *
So we have our own bona fide certifiable nutcase living downstairs from us. He is schizophrenic, and is well-known around the condo building as being such. He has been mostly harmless with me for the past 3 1/2 years, but he sometimes needs to remind himself and the world that he exists ... he needs to feel somehow part of life which normally marches by his window. And so he complains about noise, or about seeing teenagers hanging around the front door ... and if he can't detect anything to complain about, he will just invent bits of madness. Here are some examples of his claims:
- Thieves broke into his condo and rearranged his Franklin Mint collection of coins
- My wife and I, and every white person he knows, are all part of The Irish Gang, a conspiracy of white people (he is Chinese) that regularly meet to determine how next to make his life difficult and miserable (actually, if he meant it metaphorically, it would be perfectly sane—and kind of funny—but he means it quite literally)
- He worked with people in Hong Kong twenty years ago in a lumber yard who now live in the same condo building that he does; they used to be Chinese, now they are Caucasian or Hispanic
- Once he stopped taking his meds and harassed a woman living across the hall from him so much that she took out a restraining order against him
There's much more, but I am not interested in learning all the details of his damaged mind, so I let it all go in one ear and out the other. He is not adverse to coming to our door, banging loudly on it, then mentioning about the noise of our refrigerator or something else—even if we are not the people making the noise.
And such was the case last year when he complained bitterly that our refrigerator was making too much noise for him. He had a case; it was a 26-year-old refrigerator and made as much noise as an un-muffled motorcycle (well, I exaggerate, but only because so did he). So this year we bought a new fridge. Quiet, keeps the milk fresh much longer, and the ice cream rock-solid. Plus, I thought, this would stem the tide of this guy's very occasional complaints. Crazy or not, I thought, he deserves to have peace and quiet in his own condo.
Showing kindness is not something I would ever do just for the sake of receiving some gratitude back. But I at least would hope that people would lay off me when I make an effort to appease their complaints.
(Take note, former "other half" of a relationship—and this time I do mean you: You can appreciate and acknowledge without being grateful ... and if the person you are with is trustworthy, they won't even take advantage of you when they've done something for you. Even people who are intimate with each other could use a little grease of friendliness and gentleness to keep the gears rolling smoothly. Just sitting looking fierce and ready to kill makes it hard for the other guy to feel any fondness—especially after concession after concession to try to appease your fears. Look, put it this way: As I type this I am eating my lunch; I just discovered that my wife packed half of her chocolate bar into my lunch bag! Am I suspicious? Will I go home and sit staring at her waiting for her to make me pay for the beautiful gesture of giving me her chocolate? No! I trust her that if she gives me this small gift it is because she wants to ... not because she wants something from me, and not with the looming danger of her taking it out of me later. But, you know what? If I kept going home with such fears, eventually it would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. )
Where was I? Oh yes, new refrigerator in hopes Mr. Crazy downstairs would lay off the noise complaints about it. Well, no, now he thinks that it was actually my air-conditioner all along. Oh brother! So he comes to the door to complain that the noise is deafening (all of a sudden after three years) and I tell him it wasn't on. He is imagining things. (Oops, you should never say that to a schizophrenic guy.)
But I had already bought little sound-insulation pads and fitted them to castors under the air-condtioner feet. The fact is, even though it was already noise-compressed (and hardly "deafening") he could hear it ... so it was worth complaining about. Because he could hear the noise from upstairs (I hear noises too, a little tolerance is necessary when living together like that) he can think he is an important person by complaining.
Even if there is a near certainty that it isn't even coming from my place!
Next step was a letter from the property management company. They know full well about his insane ramblings about The Irish Gang and malicious break-and-enter rearrangements of his coin collection. They also know that a woman living in the building took out a restraining order against him when he completely went off his meds. But they fulfilled their duties by having a letter sent to me telling me to pipe down.
So I had to respond. I do nothing but imflame their ire if I ignore their letter. So:
- I bought a 3"-thick pad to cushion the whole machine from the floor. But air could not properly circulate, so it started leaking water.
- I then built a frame to keep some space between the cushion and the machine, but it would not stand up perfectly straight (the cushion is not rigid—part of why it insulates so well) and so it started leaking water again!
- So I put a 2-ply piece of plywood on top of the cushion and re-used
the castors, as well as the frame. I now have the following rather complicated
setup:
- Cushion on floor (sound suppression)
- Plywood on cushion (to maintain a level patform so that water won't spill out)
- Sound-suppression castors (just that little bit extra protection)
- Stability frame (previously used to keep airflow going, now used to keep the conditioner from rolling off)
Or, in a more visual vein:
(Not shown: duct tape)
Now the entire assembly shown above was tested out last night (it ran the whole time we slept) and there was not a single drop of leaked water. Plus, the sound was almost completely deadened. I put my ear against the floor with the conditioner running, and couldn't hear it (but I could hear the downstairs maniac's television).
Do you think this will solve the problem? Well, knowing this guy: Probably not, since his complaints are not really about the noise, but because he needs to feel as though he is a real citizen, and not some crazy dude living out his days on a pension (even though he is). So he'll find something else to complain about, just to feel like he is participating in the world.
But at least I can let the property management company know that I have done all that is possible to keep him happy; even if we forget about my replacing the refrigerator, I can still point to all the modifications to suppress noise from the air-conditioner. That ought to prove to them that I am not ignoring their letter, and being a good tolerant citizen, even if the dude downstairs isn't. I've given myself the moral high ground in preparation for the next time he complains about something. Because I am sure he eventually will.
Sign my guestbook - Email me - Back to the Rant-o-Rama index