Cannabis Kook
a true story (written this year)
by D Dawn Munro

The asshole downstairs just tried to catch me again. His name is xxxx. I am seriously at the point of calling the police, except that I don't want to go to all the trouble, and I don't want to give him any satisfaction (that he is frightening me, stressing me out). I took a video of the results last week of him smashing the concrete blocks I had on the fire escape by throwing them down the steel steps (making a huge noise, no doubt to intimidate me). It's bloody lucky no one happened to exit the fire door on his floor at the time, or happened to be en route to the parking lot at the back of our building. (See the picture accompanying this essay -- the fire door on that floor is directly below the fire escape, like the one on my floor is to the left of the can I use to fill with water for the birds I feed every day. The water freezes in winter and holds the cardboard in place, upon which I scatter the birdseed or bread crumbs.)

Also, xxxx took the block of wood I use to prop the fire door open when his reefer smoke is permeating the hall, too, like he did once before, and slammed the steel door as hard as he could. (No, it's not just my apartment that suffers his secondhand marijuana smoke, although it's my only serious concern, unless I need to open my floor's fire door, for a cross breeze to clear the air because the scent comes into my apartment from the hall.)

It's beautiful outside right now, plus fourteen degrees Celsius, and I wouldn't mind being out, but I'm not feeling all that hot. These years of being bullied have taken their toll on my health, as (of course) has the marijuana smoke I've been forced to live with, even sleep in, thanks to a man who's proven to be a lot more than an inconsiderate neighbor.

I'm afraid my hypertension might have blossomed into heart trouble -- I'll be making an appointment with the doctor soon, but I lived with the symptoms with my mother, and I also had a heart murmur as a kid -- I have a pretty good idea how heart trouble manifests itself. My legs don't just cramp at night anymore. But it's the extreme Charlie horse cramps in the calf of a leg upon awakening that is the killer, not the ones I have all the time now. I experience shortness of breath lying down, numbness and/or tingling in my arms and hands, sudden, staggering pain in my lower back or jaw...

Last week xxxx rushed down my hall, trying to catch me because I reported to the landlord that he was smoking inside his apartment again. He called out, "Sure, run, YOU F*CKING BITCH!"

Unbalanced, or what? I am sixty-six years old, and a woman. Did he expect me to confront him?

Of course I did go straight to him, the first time. Politely. Asking if it would be terribly inconvenient to step out of his apartment the few feet it would take to get to the fire exit beside his place. I explained that like hot air will rise, his smoke was rising and filling my apartment whenever he smoked. He stood in the doorway of his place, a haze of fragrant, blue smoke filling the air around him, smirking at me. "I'm not smoking weed," he declared, lying to my face, the unspoken challenge a glint in his bloodshot eyes.

Next, I tried a note on his door. It was just as effective. I called the non-emergency number for the police and was told it was a misdemeanor, and that they couldn't enforce the law when he was doing it inside the privacy of his home.

So I went to the landlord for help. Nearly two years later, there was still no result, just a lot of excuses about how difficult it was, and how an owner's hands were really tied. When I called the Landlord and Tenant Board, they told me I couldn't lodge a complaint against a fellow tenant -- it would have to be the landlord.

I don't trust the landlord's claims that he was trying, at least not then -- he brought xxxx and a lawyer to that hearing. I attended, with the Board's permission, by phone. But although xxxx wasn't supposed to be there, and was not allowed into the hearing, the landlord reported everything to him, stepping out of the meeting a few times to consult with xxxx. I still won the case, though it sure didn't improve my relationship with the landlord after two years of nagging him roughly once a month. xxxx is an accomplished liar too -- very good at it. His manipulation of the truth and the landlord is legendary. Here's an example -- an excerpt from just one of the many emails he sent to the landlord, this time 'kindly' asking the landlord to pass his message on to me (like he didn't stand outside my door, screaming, trying to get me to open it when the L & T hearing was coming up, then in frustration, rip up the letter the landlord had left, and leave the pieces scattered on the floor... Like he hasn't been up to my floor twice since last week, employing his bullying tactics... As if he needed the landlord to pass on any message to me, like this one):

"...If your nose is that good then I would suggest that my raw bag is seeping through the ceiling and that's what *you're* smelling...." (He wrote *your*.)

I'd had no choice but to take the landlord to the Board -- I used to wake up almost every morning looking like I had spent all night in a coffeehouse with Cheech and Chong. I begged the landlord to do something, explained that even Prissy, my cat, had developed a wheeze. She used to sleep with her head propped up against the wall, or on a pillow -- still does, occasionally. But at least the wheeze eased in the year the Landlord & Tenant Board made xxxx stop inflicting his second-hand smoke on our living environment.

But like magic, xxxx's weekend and nightly habit began again as soon as that year was up. Worse -- he's apparently decided that the first time he tried intimidating me (when he caught me on my way up the building's communal stairway) and didn't get any problem as a result of it, he can get away with anything. (I did report it -- to both the landlord and the L & T board.)

It's not like the landlord doesn't know anyway -- the skunky odour is frequently evident in the halls. The last time (just a week ago) I told the landlord that xxxx is still smoking inside, and just goes out when he feels like it, leaving roaches scattered in the front of the building (as 'proof' I am just a miserable old broad who loves to complain), the landlord told me that xxxx is volatile. (Gee, thanks, landlord -- isn't that what I told you more than three years ago?)

Of course xxxx claims others in the building smoke marijuana, and that's what I am smelling. I don't doubt that there are other tenants who smoke it, but their smoke doesn't start under my bathroom, and under my kitchen sink -- the very area xxxx uses underneath me. He once admitted it to me (inadvertently, when trying to say he was co-operating by going into his bathroom to toke).

If I could move, I would. I'm not able to, though, for many reasons, not the least of which is my health. But it's mainly financial. I do not own a vehicle, and I live on a very small, fixed income. A car would be a means of escaping the city -- a way to apartment-hunt in other Ontario towns where apartments are a lot cheaper. Rents in Toronto have more than tripled since I lived here, but because I have been a resident of this building for many years, my rent is controlled by government. The average one-bedroom place is currently about three or four hundred dollars less than my whole monthly pension.

I could manage to pay that kind of rent if I don't want to eat, I guess.

A friend who read some of this when I began writing the story a few years ago, told me to start a Go Fund Me page so I could buy a vehicle (and get the hell away from here). I was so embarrassed at the thought, but now I think she was (and is) a lot smarter than I am. Desperate times calls for desperate measures. But I still couldn't do it. Whoever would believe that was my reason for wanting them to finance a car?

Nope. I'm stuck here for the time being. However, I'm saving pennies like a squirrel stores nuts for the winter.

Speaking of "nuts"... Would you believe another grass-smoking neighbor moved in just down the hall? Thanks, Mr. Prime Minister. It's no longer even a misdemeanor crime.

I could not give a tinker's damn what anyone else wants to do (or ingest), but when that person's rights infringe on mine, especially my right to a healthy living space, I have to care.Columnist, Ann Landers, wrote it best, and I've never forgotten her words: "The right to swing your arm ends where the other person's nose begins."
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