Saturday, July 31, 2004

Mama mia!

Moving into my new apartment, I was made aware that one of the roommates' mothers was, for lack of a better phrase, a paranoid schizophrenic. I didn't get all of the major details about the mental problems but I was pretty much made aware that her moods change on a fairly often basis.

When I first met her, I was nice and polite and everything seemed okay. So when I got last night and saw her standing in the kitchen of the apartment, I knew that I was just going to be polite and kind to her and very nonthreatening. Sadly, neither of the roommates (a married couple if you have forgotten) was home at the time which really made me wonder why she was there (more on that later). I explained to her that I had bought the internet router and I was going to set it up on their computer and showed her the box and everything. I set it up and went back to my bedroom where I started the set up on my end.

Of course since I'm not the most technologically savvy people on the face of the planet, I had to call the Linksys tech support and made a few trips to the closet where their computer is in order to get some information off of the back of the router. I explained each trip to the closet to her mother so she would know I was doing legitimate. On my last trip (which would have fixed everything), I learned that her mother had locked the front door on me.

(At this point I should explain that our apartment has two entrances, the main one to the major portion of the apartment and a second one that leads to my bedroom. There's a set of sliding doors which leads to the closet that is in between my bedroom and the rest of the apartment and is the closet that in fact houses their clothes and computer.)

So knowing I just needed that one last bit of information from the back of the router, I went through the sliding doors and sat down at the computer. Well for some reason she came into the closet and pretty much went psycho on me. She screamed, "Why did you sneak in here! You go back through those doors and you lock them or I'm going to call the cops!" I yelled back, "Why did you lock me out of my own apartment?" She of course didn't answer this and started yelling me even more to the point where I just gave up, knowing her mental state, and to a small extent I was kinda fearful that she might get physical. Not that I wouldn't be able to take her on but I knew just to get out.

I got back into my bedroom and got on the phone with the roommate and told her what happened. Apparently she had asked her mother to come over and feed the cats and if she wanted to hang out for a while in the apartment she could. Additionally, I learned later, she was also told that if she wanted to spend the night in the apartment instead of making another trip the next day to feed the cats that she could.

So Female Roomie was incredibly apologetic and offered to come home immediately. She was, I believe, at a bar watching a band perform and I told her not to worry I can hang in my own room until then. Of course that was until I had to go to the bathroom. I went to the front door with my keys in hand and unlocked the door. When I opened it, I learned she had put the chain on the door and I could see Male Roomie's boogie boards had been placed against the door as well.

"Ma'am, I need to go to the bathroom," I said as loud as I could to get her attention. She did let me in to take care of it and as soon as I had left the apartment she relocked and chained the door.

At this point, I got really pissed. She locked AND chained the door to keep me out of my own apartment. An apartment where I pay rent, she doesn't, and basically had no rights. If Female Roomie wasn't coming home to take care of it after the show. I would have called the cops right then because I wasn't going to deal with it. I started wondering if she was going to spend the night (at this point I didn't know about the offer to stay that was made) and if she was going to have the door chained and locked all night. I knew that if she did stay and did keep the door in its locked condition, I was going to walk through the sliding doors to go to the bathroom whether she wanted me to or not. If she dared to call the cops I would sit down and tell her to go right ahead because it would be her leaving in the handcuffs.

Around 10:30, I went outside and sat on the stoop making phone calls to some friends on the West Coast and about 15 minutes later the Roomies came home. I warned them about the door lock/chained situation and gave a small little synopsis of what happened and Female Roomie was still incredibly apologetic. Male Roomie was the first to enter the apartment while Female Roomie and I talked outside as he had to go to the bathroom. When he came back out, he told me that the door was indeed locked, chained, and blocked by boogie boards. He asked her why the door was set up in that manner and she said it was because I kept entering the apartment and going into the closet. He told her that I was allowed to do that since as I paid half of the rent I was entitled to access in the apartment.

Her response: "No, he's not. He's not allowed."

This went on for a while, he said, along with a few more statements from her that she wasn't going to leave the apartment at all becaues I wasn't allowed to go into the apartment and she was going to see to that. No matter how much Male Roomie tried to tell her otherwise she used her threat that we would have to call the cops to get her out of the apartment. I was ready to call because at this point my apartment was being held hostage and I was over it.

Female Roomie went inside to talk to her mother and Male Roomie and I stood outside where we talked about Psycho Mom and some of her beliefs of how her family was under attack because the divine voices told her so. A few minutes later Female Roomie came out to tell me that Psycho Mom was indeed leaving and that pretty much she had been told that she wasn't welcome back because of this. I said that I was going to head back to my room just so we could avoid seeing each other. Female Roomie was again very apologetic about everything and I told her not to worry and we could talk about it when she got back from Long Island.

But here's the freaky part about it all...I keep wondering if she forgot that she's not allowed back to the apartment and each time I hear the gate (or any gate from myself or the neighbors) part of me does wonder if it's her coming back and if she's going to set up camp in the apartment again and lock me out once again. I know it's kinda wrong for me to be thinking that and all but since her mother isn't exactly a Stable Mabel and I have their permission to move in the apartment as I see fit...well....what can ya do???

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