:: Venting Insanity ::

:: Saturday, July 19, 2003 ::

interesting news
Well, we finally found out what happened the last time the cops were called in. It turns out our Commons Rep (the lady from 11) was taken in under arrest for trespassing and violating an order of protection. The lady in 7 (we'll call her Loony Jen from here on out since I've seen her outside doing some really weird stuff) apparently had an order of protection put out against the Commons Rep so she would stay away from Loony Jen's kid... We'll call him Harry Potter. He looks like a seven-year-old version of Dan Radcliffe, glasses and all...

Of course, it turns out that the Commons Rep's son (we'll call him Whack Job, since the Commons Rep says he has some mental problems anyway...) was living with the Commons Rep and her husband (we'll call him Corvette Guy, since he collects Corvettes). Commons Rep and Corvette Guy go on vacation. Whack Job is shacking up with Loony Jen and Harry Potter. Commons Rep and Corvette Guy give their key to their neighbor, saying that Whack Job is allowed to go in and get his stuff when he's ready, since he's being kicked out. Well, neighbor just hands over the key, instead of going in there and making sure Whack Job doesn't do anything wrong.

So, to prevent further trouble, Commons Rep and Corvette Guy change their locks. Whack Job gets pissed and it starts a huge feud. Eventually, Whack Job manages to convince Loony Jen that Commons Rep is a bad person. Loony Jen panicks and takes out this order of protection (which is rediculous in a condominium setting because we all live closer than an order of protection would permit anyway) against Commons Rep. He and Loony Jen then get Harry Potter all freaked out to the point that he's scared out of his wits of Commons Rep.

Well, it all falls apart when Commons Rep happened to walk past Harry Potter while getting the mail. We have large communal mail boxes that look like pieces yanked out of the wall of the post office. There's little locked compartments that they stick all our mail in. Harry Potter happened to be playing on the center island of our circle. All the condo buildings are arranged in these circles with the centers being landscaped and building-free. The mailboxes are usually placed in spots around the edges of the center islands, with each unit having keys to one compartment on one of these large boxes. As Commons Rep walks past Harry Potter, Harry Potter scrunches his eyes closed and clenches his fists, chanting, "I can't see you, I can't talk to you..."

Commons Rep thinks this is nuts, so she says, "Hi" to him to get him to calm down and then walks over to Loony Jen's garage to talk to her about it. Loony Jen goes nuts because Commons Rep happens to be standing on the driveway in front of her garage and calls the cops to report her for trespassing. It's not really trespassing because the driveways are what they call "common property"... just like our back yards, front yards, sidewalks, parking spots, etc. I mean, if Commons Rep was trespassing, then Harry Potter and Loony Jen are trespassing everytime they go to the center island and step on Number 4's parking spot. Number 4 doesn't have a driveway, so there's a parking spot with their number on it in the middle. Of course, I doubt Loony Jen sees it that way.

So, now the cops *have* to arrest Commons Rep. Commons Rep told Dad that it wasn't all that bad, that everyone was really nice to her, and that the cops figured the case will be tossed out of court as soon as the judge sees the community prospectus that says the driveways are common property. As a homeowner, Commons Rep is not trespassing when she walks on common property. Non-homeowners are, but not homeowners and guests. If Commons Rep had actually stepped inside the garage, that could probably be considered trespassing, as the garages are paid for by the homeowners in their commons charges. If she had stepped inside the unit, that's definitely trespassing.

new developments
However, now that it's almost all done, the cops showed up again last night. And it was nothing to do with Number 7 or Number 11. This time it was all Number 8. As I was leaving, Butch Lady was outside on the phone yelling. Her girlfriend was inside yelling. All I got out of it was Butch Lady was trying to kick her girlfriend out and her girlfriend kept yelling that she wasn't leaving. The girlfriend barracaded herself in the house, locking Butch Lady outside, so Butch Lady called the cops. I think they arrested the girlfriend, but I'm not entirely sure. I had gone to the Party Lite party last night, so I didn't see the cops arrive. Dad said he came home and there was two cars here. There was one when Mom and I got home, and the second car returned to drop off the first car's owner. I'm assuming they took her in and left the one car here.

yikes
Never in the more than twenty years that we have lived here have we seen the cops called so many times. And they've been called here four times in the past three months. Mom was looking through the prospectus for anything where we could force the homeowners to evict troublesome renters. Number 6, 7, *and* 8 (the troublesome units) are all renting from the homeowners. Either that, or we've got to stock up on Lotto tickets...