My first post for this blog

Well, life goes on as I continue to try to protect myself and make sure I stand up for myself, because if I don't on an ongoing basis, I will be "creamed"...however you want to look at that terminology.

My toilet in my apartment stopped working last Friday late afternoon...it just literally "died" no water in the tank...I tried a few things, went to store and bought a plunger (which I should have had in the first place but in my move to the 3rd floor somehow had lost my old one) and then played around "tinkering" with it, opening the tank lid and trying a few things. I can be pretty mechanical...when you've lived on your own as a woman for many years you either learn or hire someone to help you that you cannot afford to do...or have a boyfriend you "use" for those kind of things. Problem is I don't "play" that kind of game nor "use" people or form relationships just for that "need".....okay where was I? So walking down the enclosed apartment hallway one of my new neighbor friends (a woman who is new here who I've helped and been supportive of since she arrived here) well she was walking down the hallway too, towards me....I guess she could tell by my face I was not too happy, she asked me what was going on. I told her it was late Friday and so the manager was not here (she only works on weekdays and doesn't live here) for me to tell her to call the housing authority to come repair it. So I told her I thought I would just have to live with no toilet over the "long weekend". She went and knocked on another neighbors door named "Bob"...I've met and seen Bob but didn't really know him at all. Well, he answered the door and she casually told him that my toilet was broke and I had tried to fix it. He made me feel comfortable and he seemed harmless and also laid back and a good sense of humor. So I trusted him to come to check out my toilet (with my woman neighbor friend there with us) in my apartment. He told me what I thought he would "it's dead in the water, literally, you've got no water and the parts in this toilet tank look rotted and have fallen apart and look about 20 years old"! I said yes I had noticed that. He said that I could not be without a toilet for 3 days, and asked fore my phone to call "R" the assistant manager here show also lives here but has stated to me and others "I don't work on weekends or after 3 on weekdays"....yet the manager (who is another whole story not a nice woman at all and there has been a lot of her trying to intimidate me every time I bring up a problem or mistake she has made, I call her the "Intermidator" if you know what I mean. Anyway where was I? Oh yeah, the woman manager had given me "R" the assistant managers phone number for "emergencies" when I first moved to this complex about a year and a half ago. I told Bob "well "R' has told me that he doesn't work on weekends or after 3 on weekdays?...Bob said "that's a bunch of "Bull" he just wants to go get drunk all the time"...so Bob used my phone and called "R" and told him what was going on. I have no clue what "R" had said to him but I don't think it was anything good if you know what I mean. He replied to whatever "R's" comment was "well man what do you want her to do go pay for a motel for 3 days she can't afford that toilet is on it's last leg it should have been repaired by housing before she moved up to the 3rd floor in the first place". Bob hung up and said "R is on his way"....I felt a bit of relief but also concern. "R" and I have always had just a very very polite "cordial" "hello nice day" or whatever and that was pretty much it. But with "R" I had never felt uncomfortable or threatened or intimidated by him like I have the woman manager who I am sorry to say has "huge" issues with people that try to do the right thing.

So, Bob and my other neighbor friend "C" went back to their apartments after I thanked them greatly for being so supportive and kind. After a half hour of waiting I began to wonder if "R" the assistant manager would show up at all. I also am not exactly comfortable with a man I don't know well at all being in my apartment at night..by this time it was evening. Finally my doorbell rang. I looked through the peephole and saw it was "R" and I opened the door to let him in. He stood there with a large dolly type tray with tools and such on it. Before he even walked in he looked at me with great anger and pointed his finger at me and said very angrily "I do not work on weekends or after 3, you look it up in your agreement lease here, this is not an emergency and I don't give a "shit" if your bathroom is even flooding it's not my problem to you hear me"?!! Just with that one comment I could tell by speech and "smell" that he was pretty drunk. He reeked of alcohol. I took a deep breath and did my "actress face" (show no fear or they will smell it you know?) and he walked the large dolly tray deal to my bathroom, which means he was in my bedroom and I stood there and started to try to tell him that I had tried "this and that" but there was no water in the toilet tank and it would not work or flush it was just "dead". He continued to talk to me mean and point his finger in my face (along with his face in my face) it made me sick to my stomach, he reeked of booze and needed a shower bad too. I was not quite sure what to do other than to stop talking and just look him straight in the eye not agreeing or nodding just "looking" so he would have no "ammunition of words" on me. I began to feel threatened and fearful, but did not show it. I walked away from him as he started lifting the toilet lid tank. I very stepped out very "quietly"and walked out of my apartment, closing my front door very quietly and walking as fast as I could to the same woman neighbor friend down the hall. I knocked at her door and she opened it. I told her "R" had come and he was drunk and I could feel his "rage" and would she have some time to just kind of hang out with me in my living room because two is better than one, when it comes to feeling safe and maybe he wouldn't try anything that way. She gave me a nice warm hug and said "sure honey, lets go"...and very quietly walked into my apartment and sat in the living room....she looked at me rolled her eyes smelling the booze smell in the living room and all through my apartment....she mouthed to me in a whisper "this is not good he is drunk"...suddenly he came out into the living room saw her tried to smile but instead changed and looked at her mean. "R" said "you should not have got anyone involved in this "B" (that's me) and you are going to pay for this believe me" ...pointing his finger in my face and coming up to my face reeking. "C" said "Hey back off I am staying here with "B" until you are finished". He got the picture and went to go get "some parts" for the toilet. It ended up needing all new parts in the tank. I knew he would have to put all new parts in and wondered when was the last time anyone had even looked inside that tank. Housing authority and landlord are required to check all those things out before someone moves into an apartment along with shampooing the carpet....especially since they were "suddenly" charging me another security deposit and only gave me one day's notice I would have to do that the day before I moved! So, I was not able to give my male friends enough ample time to let them know when I was moving...since they didn't tell me until the day before I moved!...and they also told me the day before I moved I had to also have the apartment on the bottom floor I was moving out of cleaned up also on the same day I was moving!...I had tried and tried to get the landlord and housing to tell me so I could prepare to get the help I needed to move. Anyway suffice to say when all my wonderful "precious" women friends learned of all this, all 5 of them helped me move all slim, all disabled women. Imagine a choo choo train of women with walkers going up and down the hallway and up the elevators all day long on moving day helping me get everything up there. My boyfriend 9at the time) helped and at last minute got some other guy here to help who was also "drunk" with my heavy things that none of us women on walkers could lift of take care of. Needless to say the women friends on moving day watched the way my boyfriend was treating me and my comments to him asking him "what was his problem and why was he being so mean and "curt" to me"? as I struggled to get all this done...his response to me in front of all those women only nullified to me that my gut feeling of how he had been treating me of late was "real"...I don't even think he wanted to be there or help at all. I learned a lot about him that day then I had in months. My women friends told me "he is treating you awful why is he being like that to you we don't like it, he is hurting you, he is not the one for you"...I agreed.

Okay back to the toilet issue! It took "R" over an hour to replace all the parts in the toilet tank....of course if you are drunk it would take longer I assume wouldn't it? I cannot repeat the things he said to me while he was here but he made sure that "C" would not witness it and I knew exactly what his game was. So I played along...as he left I said in a very polite and tactful way "thank you very much kind sir I appreciate you taking the time to do this have a great weekend"...he left never looked our way as ""C" and I sat in the living room. After he left and had "Slammed" my front door for the whole world to hear, "C" and I walked into my bedroom into the bathroom and lifted the toilet lid and said "oh my look at that it looks like this ole toilet needed all new parts in the tank"...we laughed and "C" always calls all her lady friends here "honey" or "sweetie" regardless of age. She said "oh honey your whole bedroom and bathroom reek of his booze oh my heavens...went and open my bedroom window more. She hugged me and said "remember anytime you need me I am just down the hallway" and gave me a nice hug and I hugged her back and thanked her...she said "You've been there for me sweetie in so many ways, since I moved in two months ago, don't forget you have friends here",

You know when things like this happen with me (and believe me I have been threatened and intimidated by many through the years anytime I just try to do the right thing, it's not an easy thing to do but do it we women must...and we also have many disabled or not disabled men here who are always coming up to us women and asking us to help them with the most silly things...they are so afraid and we women talk about how "backwards" it all seems..we all help one another we women, but men just mostly want us to "babysit" or help them...there are only two men here that I think even know how to take care of their own lives. Sometimes I feel I just do not have the energy to "take care of it" all the time...it's a constant time consuming thing. When I think of how I had to mow my lawns at the rented places I used to live years ago and do all that work and do just everything..it makes me wonder how much life has it sucked out of me? Well, life is sure a trade off these days isn't it?

But I have decided to continue to try to do the "right things" and in polite and tactful ways, make the calls, do the paperwork, ask questions show no fear....it's funny how the professionals here in this situation look at the ones trying to do the right things as the "enemy" and try to intimidate us into not speaking up or standing up for ourselves...I mean just to get something repaired....we do pay rent and power it's just they lower it for us living below the poverty level. Now we have to start dealing with the smoking issues here that as of Sept. 1st of this month went into affect. No smoking anywhere near the apartment complex "period"...they are going to have to take long walks, or whatever...and the ones that "sneak" smokes in their apartment that the manager has been "buds" with for years before housing took over? well the manager is a smoker so she isn't going to do a thing about it so "we" make a lot of calls to the housing authority and it's not easy...especially when you have PTSD...along with your medical disability. I have been thinking it is maybe now time to start a few "get together meetings" of a few of us ladies, and start realizing that it does "take a village" rather than just one person....the more who are willing to meet and formulate housing for the "issues" that continue here because of a really "bitchy" landlord who likes to try to scare the heck out of you...well I know my rights now I have been working online printing them out...and the next time the landlord comes banging on my door (without notice) because I have made a few calls that nothing is being done when we tell or ask the landlord about the problems I will not answer the door because she is to give me "notice" when she wants to enter or deal with anything...and I have to legally give her a "yes" or "no" before she can even come up here within 24 hours!...so housing calls her because they are getting "reports" by "us" here and she hates it when we go above her head...I just tell housing "why do you think we are calling you and not the manager?...because she doesn't take care of or do anything about anything"!...but I think we need to start organizing here...because we good people are becoming really tired of the good being "punished" and the bad "rewarded"...it's time for a change and just like the saying goes "if no one stands or speaks up then nothing will ever change"...this is so true...

All for now. I will check my spellcheck later I am tired just reading this and trying to finish it up...but it feels good to "get it out"...and my therapist heard these "stories" of mine and she is very proud of me she says...but also I need some "down time" and some "quiet time" so I've got to find a better way and we are working on that so that I am not constantly under so much stress...just in order to live...a life...I want a life...now I know I will no longer answer when the woman landlord comes banging and banging on my doorbell early in the morning taking me out of a deep sleep and I am not dressed. I will look through my peephole on the door and will practice on ignoring her and going back to bed and try to calm down...and maybe one day she might learn a thing or two...because I am not going to explain or do her job for her anymore..."we" that live here are not going to do that anymore..

By the way I wrote and "tactful" but honest and heartfelt letter the day after my moved to my "then" boyfriend and shared a few "things" with him and told him it was "over"...this time I was not as sad as the last little breakup because I know for sure this time as my women friends have said "he is not the one for you"....rather be on my own then to be treated badly....it's the last thing on earth I deserve...it's his lost my friends..

All for now...there is more to come...and if you cannot handle it than please do not come and read this...this is the other side of me...the part that must protect, preserve and survive in order to live...but i am also working on handling it better and to practice and work on not letting my PTSD get worse from dealing with these situations...

Love Rhiannon