Just Ignore Them
Yesterday before I went to bed, I noticed that water was dripping from the ceiling of my kitchen. My first thought was that there’s a water leak from upstairs, so I went up and knocked on my upstairs neighbor’s door. I could hear the sound of water sweeping/dumping.
It sounded like a lake at the other side of the door. I knocked three times. They did not stop sweeping/dumping water, but did not respond to the knock either. Then I heard someone speaking from the bedroom direction in Chinese: “Someone is knocking”, and the guy responded, “Ignore them”.
Well, what they did not know was, my native language happened to be Chinese. Even if I was someone who did not know Chinese, I’d hear people talking and know they’re ignoring me intentionally.
I kept knocking. I’m a very confrontation-averse person, but after another five knocks, they still did not respond. I had enough. I started speaking to them: “Hello, excuse me, could you hear me? There’s water leaking from my ceiling, can you let me know what’s going on”?
I paraphrased and repeated these sentences about three times. Finally, after around 10 minutes of knocking and speaking to them from the hallway, the guy responded with an attitude “If you have any question, talk to the management”.
I responded, “Can you at least let me know what’s going on? Is it anything serious? My ceiling is leaking”. He responded with the same sentence. I called the management.
It was past midnight then so the janitor came over, looked at my ceiling, talked to me briefly about the situation, and went upstairs. He knocked on their door about five times (with pauses in between), no response.
I then told him that he might want to introduce himself because maybe they thought it was me again. The janitor did and knocked again for a while. Still no response. Then he decided to talk to their next-door neighbor and see if they had any issues and explained there was a water leak.
I was sure my upstairs neighbors could hear their conversation very clearly since I could hear it from downstairs. Then the janitor knocked on my upstairs neighbors’ door again, repeated who he was, and said something like “I’d have to get my key or call officers if you don’t respond”.
Still no response, he then came down and asked me if I’m sure there’s someone upstairs. So I think they changed their strategy and made an effort not to make any sound when the janitor knocked.
But they had messed with the wrong person. The janitor grabbed the keys and went back up, then they finally opened the door because they were cornered.
I could not hear clearly what the guy said, but the janitor then told me they had a water overflow at their sink, and now it looked like the floor’s fine, there’s no water anymore. He asked them not to use the sink and wait until the plumbers come the next morning.
And the janitor said the guy gave him an attitude as well. He said something like, “Why are you here”? I was super annoyed, but as I said, I’m a very passive and confrontation-averse person, I just sat there feeling like I was treated really unfairly by rude neighbors.
Luckily there’s not much damage, the water dropped to a spot where I didn’t have much stuff placed, I just had to wipe water off, and placed a plastic basin there. But…why???
Story credit: Reddit / bopomofo_9453