Last night I was walking home from a lovely dinner with my mom (her birthday treat to me) when I encountered one of my neighbors. He’s usually quite taciturn but he walked directly toward me with his dogs, making it impossible for me to easily sidestep him as his two dogs went to each side of me. He angrily told me that he heard I had changed a lock in the building a couple of hours before (I’m the building representative – vaad bayit – and take care of repairs and maintenance for the apartment building – it’s a volunteer position, no perks :)) and that it was illegal to lock that room.
I told him while I had no desire nor plans to lock the door, if the door would be locked at any point it would only be with the legal guidance of the office for building committees. He responded, “Don’t you dare lock that door; if you do a day won’t go by before I’ll break the lock.” He accusingly told me he knows why I’m doing this. I asked him why and he said I’m in cahoots with another neighbor. I asked him why I would be in cahoots with anyone and what that has to do with getting a new lock put in. He changed the topic and began yelling at me about other things. It was so irrational.
I changed the lock because there was no key for it and the building representative is supposed to have a key. Why should someone care so much about changing a lock on a door that is going to stay unlocked when it has absolutely no effect on their lives?
Maybe you care when it’s the door to the water meter room and you use the water meter as a way to harass your neighbors by turning off their water repeatedly. Maybe they assumed their actions were a factor in the new lock and felt angry that there was any potential for them to be restrained in bothering others.
Early this morning morning, his wife wrote a nasty note about me and posted it in the building entrance about how I’m using my position to further the interests of my religious friends (yes, because I changed the lock) and I shouldn’t be allowed to continue in this position any longer. Another neighbor saw it and took it down. The woman who wrote it saw him remove it, followed him upstairs while yelling and carrying the garbage can from the entryway, threw the garbage on him in front of my door.
By 8:30 am the police had arrived and I spent an hour talking to them together with the other neighbor. It was initially frustrating because the officer was unwilling to listen to the full situation due to false presumptions but eventually I think he understood we’re dealing with someone irrational.
The police said they’ll talk to the screaming neighbor, which I doubt will do anything because you can’t use legal means to mandate good character. The other family (whose husband had the garbage thrown at him) has filed for a restraining order and put their home up for sale. They’re really nice people and I hope they sell their home quickly and find a place to live with other nice people; they don’t deserve to be treated like this.
The unpleasant couple has made being the building representative here extremely difficult – I get yelled at and gossiped about for everything I do and what I don’t do. They refuse to pay the monthly fees and at the same time, complain about how the building is cleaned, who cleans it, get angry about repairs I’ve made to the building that were agreed on by all the tenants – really anything and everything…it’s a difficult situation.
When I took my kids to the park in the afternoon there was another note taped up in the building railing against me. (This time she dropped accusations about helping religious friends and wrote that I’m acting for my own personal interests.) I took it down, went to the park, then decided to make a copy and put the original back up. But by the time I returned to my home ten minutes later, there was already another note up, this time a pithy version: “Mrs. Avivah is unworthy of being the building representative.” I left it there. It shows more about her than me.
Actually, I’m happy to pass the job on to someone more ‘worthy’. But there’s no one else who is willing to take on this job because no one wants to deal with the difficult people here; the building had no maintenance/cleaning/electricity paid for eight months until I took over, and had years of neglected repairs that no one could agree to take care of because of constant arguing about every detail. It’s been grueling but I’ve been able to take care of some important things.
It’s nice to think that if you are pleasant and respectful of others, they’ll respond in kind but it’s not always true. I’ve spent almost 3.5 years being very careful to keep a positive relationship with this woman and her husband despite the many challenges they have presented me with.
We’ve all spent years making choices based on our paradigm of the world and our coping skills. When someone is abusive or unbalanced, their years have been spent making unhealthy choices; they’ve literally grooved-in patterns to their brains and are no longer wired for responding differently. Just like anyone else who has a pattern that they want to break, it would take a huge amount of awareness and conscious effort for them to respond differently than they have been for their entire lives.
So where does this all leave me? I’ve been thinking a lot about how I want to respond to these provocations because in the heat of the moment when I’m being insulted or attacked I’m not likely to be able to summon up my higher self. I’ve decided to ignore the notes and anything she says about me. I felt very threatened when her husband was so hostile last night but I’ve had time to work down those feelings and am trying to keep these people and their actions in perspective.
I’m actively working on courage, not letting myself feel defensive and scared in response to their bullying. I have to stay very conscious so I hold my ground and don’t slip into backing down. I’m not good at shrugging off attacks; I’m sensitive to criticism and take insults personally but this is something I have a chance to practice doing differently now.
Avivah
Wow that comment about courage really hit home. I never thought about it being something to work on. I am also sensitive to confrontation and tend to back down to avoid uncomfortable situations even when I believe I am right. I need to rethink this practice.
Hang in there, avivah! Chances are that the other neighbors understand the instability too. Be well, batsheva
Reach out to all the other neighbors, and see if they feel as threatened as you do. If they can back you up, you could get a group restraining order. That would carry more weight with the law.
I’m glad you’ve realized that being nice to irrational and unbalanced people is not going to work, and that you don’t blame yourself for their bad behavior. It’s sad that they’re obviously mentally unwell, but you can’t fix them. You have to protect yourself and your family.
Just remember, you are stronger than you know. Tap into that. {{{ hugs }}}
This blogpost was really devastating to me. It just scared the heck out of me in terms of making aliyah. We are working so so hard to make this dream happen. The number one issue for us now is housing. We are going to be sacrificing so much, financially speaking, to be able to buy something. I just shudder when I think that this could happen to us – – that we find the right community, the right house/apt – and then have the neighbor from hell. What can be done to make it better? You can’t exactly move when you OWN your place. But even if you were renting and knew this was a temporary problem, moving is SO difficult in Israel because of the crazy prices, sometimes difficult landlords, and the sparse availability of rental housing, so that wherever you might be living, you are kind of “stuck” to some degree. I’ve lived in so many places in our life but BH we have always had decent neighbors and mostly we’ve had excellent ones who have become dear friends. To experience what you are going thru would destroy me. I cannot imagine how hard this is for you. I would have a mini-anxiety attack wondering each time before I’d go out or come home if I would have a verbal confrontation (or worse). Even with the support of other neighbors, and even knowing that the troublemaker is not mentally normal, it really doesn’t help much when you have to live with these confrontations on a regular and upsetting basis. I think the first thing I would do would be to resign from the position of vaad habayit (but letting all the neighbors know first that there is a problem). It’s just not worth the headache. And yes, I’m a wimp at heart and not proud of my cowardice. I pray for you that this will resolve peacefully!
Galia, as I told someone yesterday, you have to look at Who is holding the stick and not make the mistake of getting too angry at the stick itself. Hashem wants me to be in this situation to learn something. You can’t avoid your life lessons and when you try, they follow you in different forms until you learn what you’re meant to learn. But I do plan to leave this situation after learning what I’m supposed to since it has added a lot of tension to my life as a homeschooler every single day.
If you buy, you aren’t stuck. You can always rent out your apartment (either long term or while you wait to sell it) and rent something else. I know, it’s an expense, it’s not easy, it’s nice to live in your own apartment but it’s even nicer to live with pleasant people!
I’ve considered resigning but I’m not going to do it yet. She and her husband have tried to force me out before this and letting abusive people take control of the situation would be the worst thing to do since if they perceive weakness it empowers them. I’m going to wait another few months and do as much as I can to improve things before I stop.
There will be challenges when you make aliyah but don’t be afraid that my challenges will be your challenges. I had a lot of fears about making aliyah (don’t we all?? :)). The only thing that I worried about that was an issue was financial stress; most of what I was faced with weren’t things I anticipated.
Avivah, I agree totally that He puts us in situations for a reason and we must try to figure out how so we can grow from it. But I had a very similar response to Galia’s – my family is also trying to make aliyah and keep hearing about all kinds of reasons why we should not make aliyah (in addition to financial reasons). I suppose this is a good argument against buying or even renting site-unseen – if you go there, you can ask the current neighbors if there is anything you need to know about goings-on in the building.
Anyway, I certainly wasn’t expecting Israelis to lay out the welcome mat for new immigrants but you would think they would cut a break for a Olah Chadashah who is actually trying to help all the neighbors and put in so much effort on their behalf. I”YH they should learn the fine art of appreciation and actually thank you at some point.
Rivka, there are all sorts of people wherever you live. In this case, asking in advance wouldn’t have helped; I myself told the person who is being harassed that I didn’t anticipate she would have any of the kind of issues with her downstairs neighbor that I had with mine. As difficult as they are and have been for years, no one would have said something because people couldn’t have imagined that they would be so blatantly problematic.
It would be nice if people were thoughtful, considerate, appreciative, but the world is filled with all kinds of people. You can do a lot of checking up about neighbors by making calls and that would be worth much more than seeing an apartment first hand.
As I told Galia, there will be challenges with aliyah because that’s how it is. After all we went through, every single one of us in our family agrees it was worth it. And even though I’d rather have avoided the hard stuff, it’s helped me develop aspects of myself that I wouldn’t have developed otherwise. If you believe aliyah is right for your family, don’t be scared by naysayers. The unknown is hard but this is such a wonderful place to live. For me, keeping my glance upward towards Hashem, trusting it’s for my good and asking His help in getting me through tough stuff is what has made some very unbearable things in my life manageable.
Thanks for the idea about calling the neighbors. I have been doing that with schools in Israel so why not with apartment buildings. I have also found that people are much more open about the good and the bad than in the NYC area . Where I live now, people generally are afraid to say anything negative about anything, even when it’s l’toeles.
It’s nice to hear that not only you but everyone in your family is glad you made aliyah despite all of the difficulties you have faced. My biggest fears center around keeping everyone on the right track (which is where the naysayers have scared me the most regarding older kids) and having no regrets. Since there are no guarantees whether in Israel or in chutz l’aretz, we need to make our decision based on what makes some modicum of sense and then daven, daven, daven that we have the strength to meet our challenges.
P.S. Is there any reason why each family in the building cannot be provided with one key for this locking door?
Galia, it’s not really about the lock; if it wasn’t this, it would be something else. They constantly look for ways to attack what I do and spread lies about me to the other neighbors so this is just their most recent attempt.
No advice but total empathy.
I’ve had my own crazy neighbors over the years
Hatzlachah!
Thank you for the empathy, Sharon – I appreciate it!
you are a hero, for standing up to them and for sticking it out! i probably would have moved out long ago just not to have to deal with something like that.
Chanukah is about Gvura. About the “weak” overcoming the “strong”, the few overcoming the many. Not that you are weak, Avivah, but I just realised that in Al Hanisim, the Yehudim were not weak either…they were brave and courageous like you. What a fitting time of year to write this blog and show us your gvura. Wow such gvura. Nevertheless, I am sorry for the horrible tzaar this is creating for you and your family. Believe you me, I understand your dilemma. You are a Maccabi fighter and I ask Hashem to give you every strength to cope and do the right thing for you and the klal. Nevertheless, I’d love you to come and be my neighbour (and even take over vaad bayit from me!!) 🙂
We’ve been va’ad bayit for about 7 years because no one else will do it and I can relate. It’s a thankless job! I can also relate to the neighbor from hell. We had one. He was in his late 20’s, lived alone, had had a difficult life and was very, very bitter. Particularly towards the family with lots of little feet that lived above him — us. He would complain, accost, shout, spread lies about us to the other neighbors… you name it. We went out of our way to try to accommodate him but he was never satisfied. It so severely impacted our quality of life that I became ill from the stress and tension.
Until one Friday I had an idea. I sent him a homemade challah for Shabbos. Then the next Friday a homemade cake, then a kugel… I had no idea where this would go, no expectations, bu I wanted to change the way I thought of him so I included him in my cooking and sent him something every week. Well, a few weeks went by and he showed up at the door with an expensive bottle of wine. We exchanged Shabbos gifts for a few months and things definitely settled down between us. He even became downright friendly and sometimes even helpful. And then he sold his apartment and moved away. I believed it was because he needed conflict in his life and he was so uncomfortable that we took that conflict away that he couldn’t stay in the building in peace. Some people are just like that. It’s sad. I hope things settle down with your neighbors somehow and you can live in peace. I know how stressful the opposite can be.
That’s an absolutely amazing story! I can also totally relate to the thankless job as having been on the equivalent to the Vaad HaBayit where I live. But not just that no one thanks you, that would be tolerable – it’s the complaints and criticism combined with an utter unwillingness to lift a finger by some neighbors that makes it painful. But when it reaches a level of abuse, it can certainly make a person sick. I give you so much credit that you skillfully diffused the bully and literally made the problem go away. This isn’t always possible but a good lesson for the rest of us.
I agree with you that the work isn’t the problem, it’s the criticism and complaints by people who have shown they won’t do anything to contribute and will actively oppose anyone who tries to do anything positive. What bothers me much more than the bully is a person who abets this by saying, ‘Well, if she’s so upset you must have done something, and even if you didn’t you need to communicate, you need to understand her’ rather than understanding that there’s a point that it just can’t work. One person can’t make peace on her own. A well-intended person like this makes this position much more difficult, by insisting that I need to find a way to appease her and keep her from getting angry again. Think Neville Chamberlain.
I unfortunately haven’t made the problem go away, just trying to find a way not to get sucked under by her tactics.
I hope your doughnuts will help! Agreed that when “well-intended” people enable the abusers, it makes things much worse. Not only do they not validate your completely justified hurt feelings but they also give the abuser strength and justification for continuing the abuse.
Wow, Chani, what a powerful story! The dynamics you describe sound extremely similar to ours.
I’m planning to send doughnuts to all my neighbors (including this person) this week, as I do every Chanuka, but your example of doing this every week is very inspiring.
Oy! Same neighbor who called the police on you during your seder for being too loud, when you first moved in?
No….someone who used to live in my apartment said my relationship with the neighbors you’re referring to is a miracle; I’ve worked very hard to be on good terms with them and they haven’t called the police since then.
This is the neighbor who yelled at me for the entrance floor not being mopped the morning after I finally had the building entrance repair done – after 17 months of the tile floor being open. Even though it was swept, and couldn’t be mopped until the tiles were totally set. She’s harassed her upstairs neighbor with young children, claiming excessive noise, and makes my difficult neighbors look extremely reasonable.