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JUNE 25, 2023•5:55 AM
He wasn’t a dreadful singer, not shrieky or terribly off-pitch. He kept a tune. He was enthusiastic. Had it not been 5:17 in the morning when I first heard his voice blast from his lungs through the floorboards and into my slumbering ears, I may not have minded. “My upstairs neighbor has a catchy sound,” I may have said. Boisterous but catchy. And he strums a competent guitar.
But after three pre-dawn reveilles, I asked Rhonda in the leasing office about the protocol for taming such bursts of creativity. I should say that I am nothing if not a burster myself, though my artistic exploits are silent ones. I embrace the process, in myself and others. Apartment dwelling, though, imposes limits. Rhonda said she would reel him in.
On the fifth morning, despite her efforts, I startled from sleep, convinced that my upstairs neighbor was belting in bed next to me. Adrenaline surging, I grabbed a pad and pen from the kitchen and scrawled a note: “Shut up! Your voice carries everywhere.” It was impolite, I know. I didn’t sign it or say from which apartment it had come, not knowing how he, a stranger, would react. I hadn’t met him face to face, but I’d seen him on his balcony sometimes with a boy who threw treats to the dogs when they walked below. My terrier, Charlie, had been a lucky recipient. I put on socks and tiptoed up the stairwell to his door, under which I slipped the note.
Later, I’d find out how much of a mistake that had been.
The singing continued for a few days after, and then stopped. Entirely. It stopped so completely that I felt guilty during the following days for having extinguished the man’s hobby. I thought to write another note—“It would be okay at lunchtime, maybe”—but I let it go.
For months, I didn’t hear any sounds at all from above, not his heavy heels or his child’s intermittent rolling of toys. Instead, silence.
***
After my kids left for college in 2015, I sold our house and moved into an apartment, first in Manhattan and now near Philadelphia. At 14, Charlie is less of a guard dog than he used to be. But I feel secure with people flanking me on all sides, even ones I don’t really know. I realize that this may seem naïve, but I trust that if someone in my building needed something, we’d open our doors to help. I trust that my neighbors are mostly all good.
The next time I encountered the man, I had come into the stairwell from outside, carrying Charlie, who refuses to climb the flight to our floor. The man was on his way down, so I waited at the bottom for him to descend, swivel around the banister, and enter the garage. He wore a dark suit and carried a leather case. Not more than a minute after I had walked inside my apartment and turned the lock, I heard pounding on the door. Still in my coat, I looked through the peephole. The man had come back in from the garage. He banged hard with the side of his fist, his eyes narrowing with each strike. I didn’t breathe. And he fled.
I thought to alert Rhonda, but given her earlier ineffectiveness, I decided to see if the man would pound again. I stayed in for the rest of the day.
The next morning, I entered the stairwell to find a policeman blocking the steps with yellow barricade tape.
“There’s nothing unsafe,” he told me when I asked. “Just use the elevator.”
Outside, four squad cars surrounded the corner of the building below my balcony. Officers walked around, inspecting the area. Neighbors, out for their dogs’ morning walk, gathered, looking confused.
I noticed a detective with a pad and pen and asked if I could tell him something that may or may not have been relevant. He flipped to a new page. I recounted my experience from the day before; he asked questions and wrote everything down. “Are you talking about the creepy guy?” a woman near us asked.
“There’s a creepy guy?” I said.
“On the second floor, on the corner.”
The detective wouldn’t reveal what had happened, but it clearly involved the man upstairs. I joined the group of neighbors, mostly women from the second floor, and learned that he had followed a resident to her Pilates class and waited outside until she finished. Sometimes he hung around by her apartment door. She chose not to alert the police.
While we stood on the sidewalk, still unsure of what had happened, one of the women checked the police incident report on her phone. She held up the screen and gasped: “DOA.”
Around the corner, a young woman sat in her car with her boyfriend, wailing. A policeman stood by the open door, offering support. She’d left for her morning walk before Charlie and I had, finding my upstairs neighbor hanging from the stairwell railing. I’d missed him by mere minutes.
***
Later, from a former leasing agent, we discovered that the man had yelled at Rhonda and the other staff, so they banned him from using the gym and entering the common spaces. He had also lost custody of his child, stolen a dog, and gone to jail for the theft. That’s why the singing, clomping around, and toy-rolling had stopped. Because of his conviction, he was due to be evicted two days after his return.
No one told this to me or the other tenants. They didn’t have to, even if they were genuinely concerned about his behavior—the Privacy Act of 1974 prohibits a landlord from disclosing a tenant’s criminal record to his neighbors. The only criminal background I would have been notified about would have been sexual in nature—Megan’s Law requires law enforcement to enter sex offenders’ names on a registry and alert the community by making the information public. In some states, landlords may inform neighbors that a fellow tenant is on the registry, but because these listings are public, landlords have no legal duty to do so.
When my neighbor moved in, he did not have a criminal record of any kind. When he got one for a nonviolent offense, no one had a legal responsibility to tell his neighbors (let alone reveal that he was acting erratically). And when he returned to his apartment after a four-month sentence, he was entitled to be there until the constable ushered him out. The Fair Housing Act protects against blanket use of criminal history for rejecting a lease application or evicting a tenant, requiring that “landlords consider individuals on a case-by-case basis and evaluate the nature and severity of the crime” in determining whether the person presents a danger and can be denied housing.
Seemingly, our building management had determined the man was a danger. Real estate lawyer James Tupitza told me he was likely served his eviction notice while in jail.
I appreciate the law’s need to preserve a person’s privacy, and to help him live without judgment, particularly after serving out a sentence. And I’m not advocating for the disclosure of private information.
But I would have appreciated knowing, somehow, that this man had become aggressive and inappropriate with the people who lived and worked near him, especially since that behavior had been deemed worthy of eviction. I could have adjusted my own actions. I would not have tucked a note under his door. I would have taken another circle around the block upon meeting him in the stairwell. I wouldn’t have judged him, but I wouldn’t have troubled trouble, as my grandmother used to say.
But again, there was no obligation. In cases like these, we’re relying on personal ethics to outweigh the law, something Tupitza said doesn’t often work. “If I’m a landlord thinking about invasion of privacy, I’m not going to tell anybody anything about anyone in the building. Everybody thinks they can sue everybody for everything, so I’m not going to do anything for which I don’t have a duty,” he said.
***
I think about the man when I climb the stairs, and what could have been different. I guess I hoped the women in the leasing office would have felt some duty—some human obligation—to the rest of us. Perhaps they could have winked or given a shake of the head when I asked about handling the singing myself. I think that I may have signaled some sort of warning to another woman. Maybe she would have notified someone when he banged on her door. Maybe someone could have checked on him, altering the next 15 hours of his life. Maybe the young woman in the stairwell would have escaped the horror she found. Maybe nothing would have changed.
Now, weeks later, I realize that in this case, statutes and duties wouldn’t have helped. While having access to the details may have, I’m more distressed by what I didn’t do with the information that was available to me. I raised two daughters as a single parent and knew that he was one too. I could have broached a conversation while Charlie retrieved his treats, way before I heard the strum of a guitar. I could have realized that he may have moved from a house where you could sing at 5:17 a.m. and clomp on the floors. I could have left a coloring book instead of that note. Oh God, that note.
I had no reason not to be neighborly. The privacy laws made that possible for me where they hadn’t for the women in the leasing office. But I missed the opportunity they afforded. In the apartment building, where many of us would open our doors to help, where people are mostly all good, I wasn’t.
Silence comes through the floorboards now. It is not a relief but a torment.
Archive
The Man at My Door
I had no reason to know the tragedy brewing beneath my apartment. Until, suddenly, I did.
BY PAMELA GWYN KRIPKEJUNE 25, 2023•5:55 AM
He wasn’t a dreadful singer, not shrieky or terribly off-pitch. He kept a tune. He was enthusiastic. Had it not been 5:17 in the morning when I first heard his voice blast from his lungs through the floorboards and into my slumbering ears, I may not have minded. “My upstairs neighbor has a catchy sound,” I may have said. Boisterous but catchy. And he strums a competent guitar.
But after three pre-dawn reveilles, I asked Rhonda in the leasing office about the protocol for taming such bursts of creativity. I should say that I am nothing if not a burster myself, though my artistic exploits are silent ones. I embrace the process, in myself and others. Apartment dwelling, though, imposes limits. Rhonda said she would reel him in.
On the fifth morning, despite her efforts, I startled from sleep, convinced that my upstairs neighbor was belting in bed next to me. Adrenaline surging, I grabbed a pad and pen from the kitchen and scrawled a note: “Shut up! Your voice carries everywhere.” It was impolite, I know. I didn’t sign it or say from which apartment it had come, not knowing how he, a stranger, would react. I hadn’t met him face to face, but I’d seen him on his balcony sometimes with a boy who threw treats to the dogs when they walked below. My terrier, Charlie, had been a lucky recipient. I put on socks and tiptoed up the stairwell to his door, under which I slipped the note.
Later, I’d find out how much of a mistake that had been.
The singing continued for a few days after, and then stopped. Entirely. It stopped so completely that I felt guilty during the following days for having extinguished the man’s hobby. I thought to write another note—“It would be okay at lunchtime, maybe”—but I let it go.
For months, I didn’t hear any sounds at all from above, not his heavy heels or his child’s intermittent rolling of toys. Instead, silence.
***
After my kids left for college in 2015, I sold our house and moved into an apartment, first in Manhattan and now near Philadelphia. At 14, Charlie is less of a guard dog than he used to be. But I feel secure with people flanking me on all sides, even ones I don’t really know. I realize that this may seem naïve, but I trust that if someone in my building needed something, we’d open our doors to help. I trust that my neighbors are mostly all good.
The next time I encountered the man, I had come into the stairwell from outside, carrying Charlie, who refuses to climb the flight to our floor. The man was on his way down, so I waited at the bottom for him to descend, swivel around the banister, and enter the garage. He wore a dark suit and carried a leather case. Not more than a minute after I had walked inside my apartment and turned the lock, I heard pounding on the door. Still in my coat, I looked through the peephole. The man had come back in from the garage. He banged hard with the side of his fist, his eyes narrowing with each strike. I didn’t breathe. And he fled.
I thought to alert Rhonda, but given her earlier ineffectiveness, I decided to see if the man would pound again. I stayed in for the rest of the day.
The next morning, I entered the stairwell to find a policeman blocking the steps with yellow barricade tape.
“There’s nothing unsafe,” he told me when I asked. “Just use the elevator.”
Outside, four squad cars surrounded the corner of the building below my balcony. Officers walked around, inspecting the area. Neighbors, out for their dogs’ morning walk, gathered, looking confused.
I noticed a detective with a pad and pen and asked if I could tell him something that may or may not have been relevant. He flipped to a new page. I recounted my experience from the day before; he asked questions and wrote everything down. “Are you talking about the creepy guy?” a woman near us asked.
“There’s a creepy guy?” I said.
“On the second floor, on the corner.”
The detective wouldn’t reveal what had happened, but it clearly involved the man upstairs. I joined the group of neighbors, mostly women from the second floor, and learned that he had followed a resident to her Pilates class and waited outside until she finished. Sometimes he hung around by her apartment door. She chose not to alert the police.
While we stood on the sidewalk, still unsure of what had happened, one of the women checked the police incident report on her phone. She held up the screen and gasped: “DOA.”
Around the corner, a young woman sat in her car with her boyfriend, wailing. A policeman stood by the open door, offering support. She’d left for her morning walk before Charlie and I had, finding my upstairs neighbor hanging from the stairwell railing. I’d missed him by mere minutes.
***
Later, from a former leasing agent, we discovered that the man had yelled at Rhonda and the other staff, so they banned him from using the gym and entering the common spaces. He had also lost custody of his child, stolen a dog, and gone to jail for the theft. That’s why the singing, clomping around, and toy-rolling had stopped. Because of his conviction, he was due to be evicted two days after his return.
No one told this to me or the other tenants. They didn’t have to, even if they were genuinely concerned about his behavior—the Privacy Act of 1974 prohibits a landlord from disclosing a tenant’s criminal record to his neighbors. The only criminal background I would have been notified about would have been sexual in nature—Megan’s Law requires law enforcement to enter sex offenders’ names on a registry and alert the community by making the information public. In some states, landlords may inform neighbors that a fellow tenant is on the registry, but because these listings are public, landlords have no legal duty to do so.
When my neighbor moved in, he did not have a criminal record of any kind. When he got one for a nonviolent offense, no one had a legal responsibility to tell his neighbors (let alone reveal that he was acting erratically). And when he returned to his apartment after a four-month sentence, he was entitled to be there until the constable ushered him out. The Fair Housing Act protects against blanket use of criminal history for rejecting a lease application or evicting a tenant, requiring that “landlords consider individuals on a case-by-case basis and evaluate the nature and severity of the crime” in determining whether the person presents a danger and can be denied housing.
Seemingly, our building management had determined the man was a danger. Real estate lawyer James Tupitza told me he was likely served his eviction notice while in jail.
I appreciate the law’s need to preserve a person’s privacy, and to help him live without judgment, particularly after serving out a sentence. And I’m not advocating for the disclosure of private information.
But I would have appreciated knowing, somehow, that this man had become aggressive and inappropriate with the people who lived and worked near him, especially since that behavior had been deemed worthy of eviction. I could have adjusted my own actions. I would not have tucked a note under his door. I would have taken another circle around the block upon meeting him in the stairwell. I wouldn’t have judged him, but I wouldn’t have troubled trouble, as my grandmother used to say.
But again, there was no obligation. In cases like these, we’re relying on personal ethics to outweigh the law, something Tupitza said doesn’t often work. “If I’m a landlord thinking about invasion of privacy, I’m not going to tell anybody anything about anyone in the building. Everybody thinks they can sue everybody for everything, so I’m not going to do anything for which I don’t have a duty,” he said.
***
I think about the man when I climb the stairs, and what could have been different. I guess I hoped the women in the leasing office would have felt some duty—some human obligation—to the rest of us. Perhaps they could have winked or given a shake of the head when I asked about handling the singing myself. I think that I may have signaled some sort of warning to another woman. Maybe she would have notified someone when he banged on her door. Maybe someone could have checked on him, altering the next 15 hours of his life. Maybe the young woman in the stairwell would have escaped the horror she found. Maybe nothing would have changed.
Now, weeks later, I realize that in this case, statutes and duties wouldn’t have helped. While having access to the details may have, I’m more distressed by what I didn’t do with the information that was available to me. I raised two daughters as a single parent and knew that he was one too. I could have broached a conversation while Charlie retrieved his treats, way before I heard the strum of a guitar. I could have realized that he may have moved from a house where you could sing at 5:17 a.m. and clomp on the floors. I could have left a coloring book instead of that note. Oh God, that note.
I had no reason not to be neighborly. The privacy laws made that possible for me where they hadn’t for the women in the leasing office. But I missed the opportunity they afforded. In the apartment building, where many of us would open our doors to help, where people are mostly all good, I wasn’t.
Silence comes through the floorboards now. It is not a relief but a torment.
