The Stalker

Lena
New York, NY--Downtown Manhattan
February 2004-present
4-bdrm loft apt, occupied by three ever-rotating female roomies (ten different ones in the time I've lived there--and then there are all the boyfriends who've ended up "moving in" along with them) and I

My roommates and I had this really bizarre encounter with a girl we found off craigslist. I have no problem with this site because I've found all my other roommates this way and we've became really good friends. But on rare occasions you do have some strange, strange roommate encounters like our friend here.

She ("S") moved in for two weeks. It was a brief stay. I remember being in my room when I suddenly heard a knock on our front door. I looked through the peephole to see two police officers standing there. I opened the door, more than a little confused. One of the officers said he had come to check out the light in the ceiling. I was really confused and dumbfounded. I looked at the guy and asked him "what light?" Both of them got very annoyed and said they were there to check out the light "coming from a sprinkler." Then I heard S scurrying downstairs (we have a duplex) and as she walked up to me she almost butted me out of the way and said "oh I can take care of this." I was like "you can take care of this? What?"

I walked back into my room but I was very concerned. Another roommate was sitting on my bed, a little bitter herself. She was complaining to me about S taking the room she had had originally and now wanted back. At the same time, I saw them (S and the officers) walk into S's room, flashing their lights up at the ceiling and talking. They hung around for about ten minutes and then left.

S walked into my room half unannounced and started explaining herself. Apparently she'd believed she was being stalked by this guy who was really into her and wanted to date her. He'd befriended her circle of friends and turned them against her, she said. Then she told us about how she'd seen a light coming from one of the ceiling sprinklers one night while she was trying to sleep. But the next night the light was gone. She became very concerned and phoned the police to come check it out. Apparently, her "stalker" had tracked her down, entered our apartment, and put a camera in the sprinkler that he had then managed to remove within 24 hours.

S moved out the next week. You could say we were all a little relieved. Oh, and when my one roommate moved back into her/S's room, she noticed that the sprinklers had been duct-taped.

Busted

Lena
New York, NY--Downtown Manhattan
February 2004-present
4-bdrm loft apt, occupied by three ever-rotating female roomies (ten different ones in the time I've lived there--and then there are all the boyfriends who've ended up "moving in" along with them) and I

About two years ago I returned home one night to find a police officer standing at the top of the stairs.

As I opened the door I heard the woman shouting to another officer around the corner. I froze. She looked nervous and put up her hands and told me to stop and not come up the stairs. The next thing I heard was the other officer shouting/asking if I live on the second floor. I quickly responded that, no, I do not live on the second but on the fourth floor. I repeated this a few times in case there was any doubt.

After standing in the cold doorway for about ten minutes the officer motioned for me to pass. I quickly walked up the stairs and as I turned the corner I noticed three more police officers standing on every other step of the next flight. The lead officer looked very tense and had his hand on his gun. There was another officer at the second-floor apartment door getting ready to break it down. He was holding that weapon they use to break down doors with.

They all looked at me half accusingly. The main officer continued to bang on the door and shout "open up!" I wondered if anyone was home. I quickly brushed by them and continued up the rest of the stairs. I made it inside but I was in a state of shock. My roommates saw the disbelief on my face and I quickly told them about my brief encounter with the cops. My one roommate ran back into her room to put makeup on and go flirt with some of the officers. Another roommate wanted to run down to see more of the action in person and the other one started analyzing how the landlord could be part of the bust.

The next morning, heading downstairs on my way to work, I saw that second-floor door covered in orange tape with big black letters: WARNING. There was an eviction notice on the door and some handwriting stating the tenants were part of an illegal massage and prostitution operation. Over the next couple of weeks the tenants managed to disappear, the apartment was renovated, and new tenants were found. The overall trafficking of random men that used to drop by stopped. On occasion, I still do see men in business suits coming and going from the apartment. They’re usually wearing guilty expressions and most of them are wearing wedding bands. They tend to hang around waiting for a good twenty minutes.

Thing is, it didn't really bother me. I figure my neighbors can do as they please as long as it doesn't interfere--too much--with my living.

Transition

Kristen
Brooklyn, NY--Williamsburg neighborhood
August-September 2005
Studio (loft) apt, occupied by my then-boyfriend and I

August 1, 2005
I have a new address--for another two months. Honestly, that'll just barely be worth it, considering what a production this move ended up being. You'd think that living in this city all of four months--that living in 100 percent furnished quarters--I'd hardly have had time/need to accumulate much of anything. Ah, you'd think.

I bitch/moan, when really I'm just excited. The space has already endeared itself to me (the tenant's book and music collections--amazing!), and had we gotten here earlier this evening than we did, the rooftop would've won me over just the same. Tomorrow. Come 7:00 p.m., armed with portabellos, zucchini, red onions, orange peppers, and fresh peaches for dessert, I'll capitalize. One of those Webers has my name spelled out in charcoal.

And you know, as I sit here looking at the saucepan that'll cook my eggs, the forks that'll spear my takeout, and the striped bowls that'll hold my Cheerios, I'm surprised at how normal it all seems. A credit to our last (and first) sublet, I think I've started getting used to the idea of a home not my own.

August 8, 2005
I love this half-finished studio. I love its exposed pipes and mottled cement ceiling and cheap latex-painted floor. I love this building, w/ its creaky elevator, its layers of weird tagging, its busted-out windows and floor-to-ceiling ivy, its varied cast of people, from the off-kilter ‘resident IT guy’ who hooked us up w/ wireless Internet to the woman I just met in the elevator who, on seeing my seahorse necklace, recommended an exhibit at the Coney Island Aquarium. I love this neighborhood. I love its heaps of decaying garbage, tossed car parts, bike wheels, old batteries, 151 bottles, beat-to-hell couches, shredded lawn chairs, surprise coffee shops, creperies, and bodegas that pop up every few blocks amidst deserted storefronts w/ 60s-era signage. I love imagining how Sorley's Family Thrift did back in the day, what kind of business Frank's Corner Auto pulled in, the stories told w/in any one of the long-gone drinking holes around here. On a good day, that is. On a less-than-good day, the whole scene disgusts me, or makes me blue. Yep, that's my early analysis of my new neighborhood, insofar as how it impacts me personally. Mood depending, I either love it or, well, hate's too strong a word, so I either love it or I love it a lot less. More often, though, I love.

Running around here has been really engaging; I've definitely run down Kent Avenue more than I've crossed the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan, and w/ good reason. It's eye candy aplenty. The other day I found myself in the heart of Greenpoint, which is a predominantly Polish neighborhood. Two blocks later, a mini Japantown. Ten more minutes and I was thick into brownstones and heavy tree canopies. Neat. I've also gotten a lot of pleasure in walking home around dusk, along either Kent or Wythe. Kent, closest street to the water's edge, runs for blocks w/ nothing but quiet loft spaces--large windows open, leafy palms moving in the breeze. The occasional gallery pops up, lit softly from w/in, the back of a person visible, brush in hand (really). The blare of the city is hardly audible, making these walks some of my most peaceful since moving here. People stroll past every so often, sometimes alone, sometimes w/ a companion or w/ little dogs in tow. They almost always smile and say hi. I have yet to feel threatened, as--thank you, Hasids--security cars flank the sidewalk at regular intervals.

Again, it's early, but so far so good.

--

March 24, 2008
It’s been almost three years since the Williamsburg sublet, the final day of which resonates with particular acuity.

The then-boyfriend (D) and I, making a series of trips down to the car of a friend who'd agreed to drop us at our next stop (two Brooklyn neighborhoods over, two weeks' duration--absolute last resort), were picking up on a heady smell that bloomed more offensive by the minute. Thick, oppressive, sulfuric... It seemed to hit strongest on our own floor.

Neighbors were clearly privy to it as well: doors cracked, heads poked out, "what the fuck?"s were muttered. At some point, word started circulating that plumbing work was being done in the basement, that perhaps this explained a stench now rivaling a steaming cauldron of shit. In the end we didn’t care all that much; we were out of there in a matter of minutes, anyway.

A week later, we got an email from our freshly returned tenant, who thought to inform us of the recent death of C--the IT guy, our slightly 'off' yet kind neighbor. Immediate neighbor, as in, we'd shared a wall.

In the coming weeks, I played back through my (limited) interaction w/ C. The longest stretch of time I'd spent in his presence was one Saturday afternoon, when D and I had gone over to thank him for our newly minted Internet connection. (He’d come by our place once about a week earlier, D inviting him in, not realizing I was in the process of changing and thus half naked. But, courtesy of a nearby blanket and some clever draping maneuvers, I managed to conceal my shirtlessness, chatting amiably all the while.) He'd invited us into his apartment, dressed in the only thing I ever saw him in, which was sweats and flip-flops, his longish silver hair slicked straight back with some serious pomade, or maybe just grease, and a few features stood out immediately: a decadent leather couch, a large oil portrait above it, and computers and switchboards and network cabling crowding a console-type unit at the beginning of a hallway lined on one side with industrial cooking equipment (think: restaurant supply store). I remember crumpled fast food wrappers and a stuffed ashtray. The place reeked of both.

We didn't stay long, maybe twenty minutes, but it was long enough to learn that his father (or maybe his mother--damn hazy memory) had painted the portrait above the couch. He didn't go into detail, but it was clear that their relationship had been a complicated one.

And then he wasn't around. But neither were we--no longer at that address--and, combined w/ the fleetingness of our acquaintance, this made it hard to feel and say anything more than "god, how sad." And it certainly was that--sad and strange, not to mention the first of two such experiences in two years' time. (Detecting the expiration of neighbors is now a lamentable part of my skillset.) And that Williamsburg place? Woefully ill-fated.