This is ongoing. We’ve had broken glass put in our letter box, and nearly all our family’s shoes have been stolen from outside the apartment door.
Two weeks ago we got a phone call: “Are you the lot that keep pushing the furniture back and forth?” I did a double take, stayed really polite, and established that it was the downstairs neighbours complaining about noise from our flat. I said that yes we do have a rather heavy chair and perhaps we are a bit lazy about lifting chairs up instead of pulling them so we’ll stop.
They know our phone number because of the way the internal phone system works here.
Then she said well the other thing is can you stop running and stamping in your flat as well. I said well we don’t really run and stamp, but the kids do run around. We’ll talk to the older one, but the little one is not yet two so I’m not sure there’s much I can do.
Can’t you hold him then?( 你們不能抱他嗎?) Well, no, we can’t really hold him all the time. How about putting carpets down? Well… like I said, we’ll do what we can.
But you make so much noise, and so early in the morning. Well, we get up about 6, and we’re all out of the house by 8… I should have thought that kind of time… We work nights, that’s the time when we’re just trying to get to sleep. And we’re looking after sick, old people in our flat, she says, and you’re disturbing them too.
I put kiddy socks on the really heavy chair. We made sure to pick up the furniture. She started phoning every morning and whining about the noise… can’t you stop that baby crying, what’s that banging, what’s that stomping noise (just me walking normally across the living room).
If you can’t improve we’re going to have to get other people to sort it out.
Next thing was phone calls consisting only of obscenities in Taiwanese. Then eight, nine , ten calls in succession, no talking at all.
Then a pile of sodden newspapers, mail taken out of other people’s letter boxes, and two bits of broken glass.
We told security here… the service centre here… the police. The police came round, they all say the same thing. Oh that’s terrible. Broken glass. Oh but that’s ridiculous. Of course you can’t stop a two-tear old from moving around the flat. Action? Zilch. One of the policemen said he was going to take a note for the record, and he wrote his note with a pen he borrowed from us in a blank page of his new 2006 diary.
The police won’t do any sort of investigation without firm proof that the neighbours put the glass there.
And then yesterday all our shoes disappeared. Well, not exactly… one shoe from each pair.
My wife went down with a security guard, pointlessly, and asked them politely if they knew anything about the shoes. She lied that she was asking all the other neighbours as well. Whatever, the guy just said no, he didn’t take them, of course.
Our older boy is really upset. He wants to go and cut the man’s willy off and poo in the woman’s shoes. So do I, although of course I won’t.
Just don’t know what they might try next. Short of breaking in (don’ t think so) our car seems a likely target.
What shall I do?
… Put sugar in their scooter’s/car’s gas tank, burn all of their shoes, have tap dancing competitions in your apartment, start an amateur sumo wrestling/drinking club in your apartment, invest in a mini drumkit for your 2 your old. (This is a joke, mods)
