#VOICEMAILPROBLEMS - The Creepy Neighbor

#VOICEMAILPROBLEMS - The Creepy Neighbor

You don’t get through living in New York without having a creepy neighbor or 7. My creepy neighbor lives in 2A.  He’s this 40 year old alterna-hippie-yoga-teacher-massage-therapist who doesn’t shower much and gets very handsy with me when I see him.  He will corner me and try to have a meaningful conversation and at the end he will give me a big hug and won’t let go.  He used to tell me he wished I didn’t have a boyfriend, as if that would mean he and I would be an item.  Boundaries are lost on him.  

He’s also not afraid to ask for help…a lot of help. Not long after I moved in, I made the mistake of swapping numbers.  Three days later I got an urgent call on a Sunday night while I was out.  He was in bed with the flu and needed someone to do grocery shopping for him.  I barely knew him.  I wondered, does he have friends who might do this?  I don’t think I’ve ever asked anyone to grocery shop for me.

He once asked me if I would “donate money to his cause”.  I was like, “sure, what is it?” He wanted to deepen his meditation practice in New Mexico so he was asking friends to donate $$ so he could travel there and take classes.  It made me think, can I ask my friends to pay for me to go to St. Barths; I want to deepen my tan.

Then there was the time he subleased his apartment and asked if I would go in once a week and clean it for the tenant.  When I politely declined, he followed up by asking if I would wait in my apartment for the tenants to arrive and welcome them with the keys.  I said I wouldn’t be around to give them the keys and he complained to me about having to spend money to send the keys to them via FedEx.  This is what we call West Village Luxury Problems.

But the best was yet to come.  He threw out his back last summer.  It started with texts asking me if I wanted to help nurse him.  Then it graduated to calls which I sent to voicemail.  They wouldn’t even start with a “hello” and didn’t include the words “please”.  It was more like declarative statements or demands for help.  The voicemails would go on and on about problems related to his back and his finances.  He would ask for help running errands or putting ice on his back but reassured me that I don’t have to help him go to the bathroom if I am not comfortable with it.  Really, he said that.  I kept my boundaries and didn’t go into his apartment, but I texted him to check up on him and asked if I could call a doctor or a friend for him.  I tried.

Yes, this all sounds crazy.  But I have evidence to prove that this is not an urban creepy neighbor legend.  Luckily, all of this was captured in a voicemail…which has added to the richness of humor in my life.

Some told me I was not being very neighborly by not going into his apartment to help him.  But I knew, I knew very well that this was not the inferno of hell that he was making it out to be.  He said in one of the voicemails that if he went to the emergency room, they would keep him there for weeks and he would go broke and have to move to Haarlem.  Meanwhile, he was up walking 3 days later.  I only knew that because I saw him walking into the building, with grocery bags.  He never bothered to tell me that Jesus answered his calls and helped him walk again.

I can’t make this sh*t up……See my video….Hear his voicemail.

Can you relate?

It. Is. funny.