When I first moved into my present neighborhood, I was very happy. I had just left my old apartment in a rundown neighborhood. Little would I know what my new place brought me.
The staff working in the apartment building were old sea hands. They claimed they knew the residents like the back of their hands. They gossiped and speculated on where the neighbors went, who they dated, with who they had relationships with, and everything else under their nose.
I got to “know” some neighbors through the staff because they chatted unabashedly about the residents, even as they walked through the main gate, up to the apartment block. I can NOT understand their audacity.
According to the staff, there are bad people living in the building.
A few of my female neighbors have plenty of male visitors who are required to sign in the visitors’ log book for security purposes. The apartment units with a steady stream of male visitors are allegedly occupied by hookers. I have not seen these women before, but I have seen the men who queue in line to register their visits to the building. I suspect the staff are right on this hunch.
Then, there are women who don’t wear clothes. They don’t mind being indecently dressed. There are those who board buses dressed in shorts and sports bra. Then there are middle-aged women neighbors who dress like they are in their 20s and early adulthood. They wear tights and leotards, exposing their behinds, like it has not gone out of fashion. The staff are disinterested in these desperate women because they are poor.
There are some mothers who want to leave their kids with other women and teenagers. They want to work or go out without being burdened by childcare. My building manager lied to residents that “neighbors required telephone numbers to speak about toilet plumbing problems”. I discovered the phone numbers were being used to ask for childcare from residents.
There are more stories about staff trying to chat up female residents and even sending telepathic messages via questioning looks. I have drawn a series of sketches on this theme of staff desiring to dally with residents. I think GC and Sue have brought up a controversial and evergreen topic on neighbors (and staff on site who are our working site neighbors). Although my sketches are not fully colored nor ready to be posted, I’ll try to get them prepared ASAP.
I’ll have to stop here because its time for me to leave for a few hours.
Prompt – Weekly Prompts neighbors from https://weeklyprompts.com/2019/08/28/word-prompt-neighbors/
By Site owners – GC, themainaisle.com – SueW, nansfarm.net
