A Call for Prayers

Oh. Dear sweet friends of the Internet, I have had a distressing afternoon.

I had a confrontation with my neighbor. She lives below me on the second floor of a three floor Walk-up. She's a general nuisance but beyond that she is mentally ill. Bi-Polar or Schizo or both. I've written about her previously here and here.

She of course (of course in the sense of: in order to make my life as miserable as possible while at the same time behaving as a typical Bi-Polar case) refuses to take her meds, and prefers to self-medicate with alcohol.

When she's particularly agitated she comes home and blares her music so loud that there is 1) no way I can ignore it and 2) no way to drown it out. It vibrates my walls, floors and furniture. She slams her doors. Not just when she comes home but possibly when she is having arguments with the voices in her head. She sometimes slams doors at full decibel for 90 minutes at a time.

My neighbor below her works from home and has to sit in a coffee shop all day to do her work because she can't assume her days will be peaceful at home.

Everyone in this building but me is non-confrontational. They sort of take the attitude of "That's how it is so we'll just have to live with it." I am not that sort of person. Sometimes I wish I could be. Fact is I am not.

Instead, I embrace the fact that the law is on my side. So I went down and knocked on her door this afternoon and said, "If you can't start keeping your music at a neighborly level, we will have to start calling the police again to intervene."

She threw her door open and starting yelling at me. Told me not to threaten her. Told me that I'm loud all the time. She says I stomp around all the time. (I'm in bare feet 98.5% of the time that I am home - and I don't stomp.) Blames me for damage to her ceiling. (my bathroom pipes leaked - not that she bothered to tell me. She waited for the damage to infiltrate the first floor before I knew I had a leak.) I reminded her that I arranged and paid for the contractor and supplies to fix that.

I defended myself. Voices were raised. I wish I could have kept my cool but I didn't. And I am ashamed.

I am also scared. Our condo building has already taken her to court for throwing bricks through people's car windshields. She has keyed my front door... and my old car. I am now scared of what she'll do now that I've ticked her off good and well.

Mr. Burns reminded me to pray for her. And to pray for myself.
But my friends, I think I need help.
If you could pray for us too - I'd really appreciate it.

Side note: We are both unit owners in our building so it's not like we can have her evicted. Also - it's a terrible time to sell. I haven't had steady income in a year so I can't even prove income to rent a different apartment. I'm sort of stuck here.