For those of you who have lived in or spent time in New York City, you’ll be familiar with the term “air mail” as it applies to living quarters. Years ago people in upper floors of apartment buildings used to throw their trash directly into the air shaft which was at the centre of most large tenement buildings. I have become the victim of air mail here in London.
For the last few weeks, I have occasionally been finding various trash-like objects in our back garden. Most of them have had to do with diabetes medicine. I found four or five vials of insulin, some specialised needles for insulin injection, some lancets for fingerpricking to test blood for sugar levels, some test strips, and various medical boxes. Originally I had thought that someone was trying to shoot up outside the garden then throwing the debris over the wall. However, this morning I had a thought, and spoke to the people at the housing association. I asked them to check whether the new tenant in flat 3 was a diabetic. The gentleman who lives in flat 5 is a paranoid schizophrenic and has nailed his windows shut. And some of the material that we found was pieces of paper that would be difficult to throw over the wall but easy to drop out a window. They promised to check.
Well, this evening HWMBO was looking out the back door when a banana peel fell directly down in front of him. It did not come over the wall. Thus, the woman in 3 must be dropping trash out her window. I am not keen to have medical waste in my back garden. I shall have to call the housing association tomorrow to report and ask them to tell her to stop.
If they don’t or won’t act, report her to the local health authorities.
Things are slightly different here. The local borough would handle such things, but the woman is a client of a mental health charity and I have been told that it is difficult to prosecute someone of that type for this kind of thing. She’d have to assault me personally to get any punishment at all…
I think it’s her carer, to tell you the truth.
You’re far more polite than I would have been. Had I actually witnessed the banana peel being thrown into my yard, I would have thrown it back in her window!
the trouble with that kind of direct action is, the woman knows exactly where Chris lives, and is in the ideal position (vertically) to exact revenge. multiple times.
And also recall that everyone who lives on the upper floors in this block is a client of a mental health charity. This makes it even more daring to try direct action (which I wouldn’t do anyway, as it’s not in my or HWMBO’s nature).