At first, he was a bit strange and fun to talk about. Then he became a little annoying and unpleasant. Now, he's a bona fide very bad thing, and he must be stopped.
I call him The Rat.
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Rats are small sneaky creatures who are rarely seen in daylight.
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I first became aware of The Rat when I moved into this apartment, and I noticed that one of the doors in the hallway wasn't painted a soothing pink-rose colour. The door immediately across from my apartment was (is) thickly encrusted with a smudged swirl of black and brown filth. I had to wonder (aloud, I think), how does a door get that dirty on the outside? Wait for it - you'll find out. Anyway, for the first week or so, The Rat didn't have a nickname, and I was unaware of the evil on the 14th floor.
I don't see my neighbours very often - I went around and said hello, and gave them little gifts of plastic wrap and paper towels like a new neighbour is supposed to (kind of a reverse-Welcome Wagon custom), but since then, I see them only once in awhile. There's the nice lady who says 'okairi nasai' (welcome home) when I see her at night, and there's the guy next door who looks like a retired science teacher, and there's the Tanimuro family down the hall. It's like they never leave their homes - granted, most of them are older and probably retired, but don't retired people need sun once in awhile? At any rate, I don't see my neighbours every day, so it wasn't particularly surprising that I hadn't seen my neighbour across the hall until about a week after moving in.
Rats can squeeze through incredibly small holes and cracks.
I happened to be leaving my place in the evening at the same time as he was coming home, and even then I only caught the tail end (so to speak) of The Rat's arrival. I saw that his door was only open about a foot, and that his leg was wrapped around from behind the door, and receding into his apartment. Then the door slammed, and that was that. Odd. When his door closed, several advertising fliers jutted out from his doorjamb. Messy, I thought - he should pick those up so they don't stick out when he closes his door. Little did I know, this was an extremely naοve thing for me to think.
The next time I saw him, I was treated to the whole show. It was basically the same situation, but this time I came out of my place just as he was putting the key in his lock. His head whipped around, he glared at me for a second with small glittering eyes, and then pushed his entire body against his dirty door with jerky, panicked movements. Again, the door only opened about a foot, but this time I could see why. The aforementioned fliers were only the latest in what I would guess is a two-year collection of paper piled up just inside his door. I could see that the browned paper formed a drift of fire hazard about 4 feet up his wall, so it's little wonder that he has to push so hard to open his door. This also solves the mystery of why his door is so awful on the outside - he has to push that hard to open up a small crack, and then wipe his body across the entire surface of the door in order to slither into his lair. Ok, I thought - weird and creepy. Hermit-like and possibly dangerous. It was after this incident that he was dubbed The Rat. The furtive movements and scurrying, coupled with the filth - it was just obvious.
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Rats look unclean - greasy fur and dirty feet.
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The Rat is anomalous. The first few times I saw him, he was wearing an odd assortment of things, apparently from the "Found In A Bag By The Tracks" Collection. He's usually sighted in grey slacks, tucked into black motorcycle boots, topped off by a very tight green Pleather jacket. His hair is phantasmagoric - it looks like an Elvis wig for someone three times his size, but I think it's his real greasy, matted hair. He's about 40 or so, but he dresses like a 14-year old's Halloween version of a mass-murderer. He has a distinctly Robert Deniro-as-Max Cady-in-Cape Fear sort of look going on.
But.
Rats stink. They are known to live in sewers and garbage cans, and don't seem to notice the stench.
In this apartment complex (public housing), apartments are new when you move in. Fresh paint, new ceiling, flooring, and a thorough going-over of the plumbing and electrical. In essence, you're moving into a brand-new apartment. So, for about the first month or so (into March), my place had that new-place smell - paint, varnish, etc. Around April, as the warmer weather started, I started to notice a bit of a bad smell when I walked into my apartment. I try to keep things clean - take out my garbage regularly, keep the little bathroom scrubbed, rinse out the drains so I don't get that Creeping Horror stink in my home. So, I started cleaning more conscientiously, thinking there was something smelly that I was missing. I also started leaving my window and balcony door open during the day while I was out, to keep a cross-draft moving and air everything out. No matter what I did, I couldn't get rid of the smell.
It was around June that I noticed that it wasn't only my individual space that had that smell, but that the entire hallway was getting stinkier. It was starting to get that smell that's usually only achieved by wet towels on the floor, or laundry hampers. Vaguely irritating, but not the worst smell in the world. It was also around this time that I started entertaining the notion that perhaps the stink was coming from The Rat's nest, and that it wasn't just a terrible mιlange of everyone's everyday hot-weather odours. Correct. As the weather got hotter, his hovel started broadcasting thicker and more complex aromas into the hall. It was like he was keeping chickens in his closets or something. As time crawled on in the obscenely hot and humid summer, the composition of his stink became more and more lethal. It developed from barnyard, through wet dog in a barrel of cigar butts, to Bangkok gutter, to its present glory, 4,000 hobo socks.
I hardly need to say that I stopped leaving my door or window open, as the clinging invasion from across the hall was starting to take up residence in my curtains and sheets. Luckily I spent the summer with my air conditioner on, thus eliminating the need to open windows. But, it costs dearly to use that much electricity, so I have recently started opening the balcony door instead of using the a/c - it's cooler at night, and my fan definitely uses much less electricity. I burn incense or oils constantly, and spray air freshener every chance I get. I'm keeping it at bay for the time being, but I don't know if I have the energy to keep it up.
The Rat has marked out quite an extensive territory with his stench. The smell starts at the elevators, and intensifies at you make the 30 second walk down the hall to my place. I actually gagged the other day. People make loud retching noises when they leave my apartment, and Japanese friends are encouraged to remark 'kusai!' (smelly) when they are outside his door. His stink has forced me to adopt his method of getting in the door as quickly as possible, just to keep it out.
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Rats hide in the shadows and do creepy things.
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Not surprisingly, no one but The Rat enters or leaves his apartment. He doesn't appear to have any friends, and I shudder to think what he's doing out in the world for fun. I never hear a TV or music coming from his place, and it doesn't even look like he turns on lights when he gets home. It's like he just squats in the dark in his muck. I know it sounds like I'm spying on him, but it's actually that I'm trying to figure him out. He started it, by being a weirdo. There's a Tom Waits song called "What's He Building in There?", about a creepy neighbour who comes and goes at odd hours and generally acts strange. Listen to that song, and you'll understand the feeling around here.
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Rats are the only animal besides Man known to murder.
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So what do I do? Complain to the management? There are people who have lived near him for years, and they haven't, so there must be a reason. It could be that they're just that polite, or because they know him and fear him. It can't be that they don't notice. If I did, he would know it was me who complained, and to tell the truth, I'm a little afraid of The Rat. He's established a pattern of poor choices and unpredictable actions. The last thing I need is an insane and filthy enemy who can't even listen to reason because we don't speak the same language. Difficult to say what that smell is, and I don't want to find out the hard way.
I brought it up in a class discussion with students about neighbourhoods, and my story won hands-down. Suggestions included 1. moving, 2. giving him a note, 3. shouting at his door, and my personal favourite, 4. calling the fire dept. and telling them The Rat's apartment is on fire so they'll hose it down and clean it.
The nest is a definite health and fire hazard - I could make an official complaint based solely on that, but then I still run the risk of dirtboy getting back at me in a completely unexpected and terrible way.
I splashed cologne on his door one particularly malodorous afternoon. I'm not proud of it, but I was sickened and not thinking straight. The cologne hung around for a few days, so the hallway smelled like I would if I didn't bathe. Ever. Now there are two splashy-shaped clean marks on his door, and the paint's starting to peel. I don't care.
I'm going to set up a fan in my doorway and blow nice smells into his apartment. I may bake bread just for that purpose. I could burn entire packages of incense behind the fan, and drive away the microbes of his diseased emanations. You may think I'm obsessing about this, and making a mountain out of a rat's nest, but you haven't smelled it. It's olfactory warfare, and I'm joining the fray. I think the neighbours might appreciate it too.
I'll keep you posted.