Max Manders

Some people are unnecessarily rude and passive-aggressive, one of my neighbours for example.  When I got home from work, my wife Jo showed me a note that had been pushed through our letter box while she was in the bath.  There’s a photo of the anonymous note, and my reply below.

Here’s the original text, verbatim:

Dear Fellow Resident,

Could the person responsible for the green/yellow trail of “god knows what”
leading from this level (2nd) all the way down the common stairs & into the
entrance halls please show some sense of decency & consideration for their
fellow residents and clean it up immediately.

The weekly cleaning service this stair receives extends only to hoovering of
the stair carpet. The carpets are nto due to be shampooed for the best part of
another year and so if whoever is responsible for this mess does not clean it
up then it will simply lie there for the rest of this year.

This incident clearly happened sometime yesterday afternoon (Mon) and is
possibly due to a bin bag being disposed of with this substance accidentally
seeping out. This may have gone unnoticed by the person responsble
so………… if you took a bin bag down the stairs yesterday afternoon and you
recognise this rather colourfil & distinctive “stuff” as something once
belonging to your apartment then please do something about it!!!!

Thanks on behalf of all residents who share this stair.

In this case, I take full responsibility.  We’d had a Thai soup a few days ago, and I ‘d taken the rubbish out yesterday.  I hadn’t noticed anything, but clearly it’s quite likely I made the mess.  I have of course taken a scrubbing brush and soapy water to the two or three patches on the stairs.

What I take exception to, is the way in which one of our neighbours felt compelled to bring it to our attention.  The note had been typed, so somebody had taken the time and effort to write and print this, when they could have just scrawled a few lines on a piece of paper or knocked on our door to talk to us.  Furthermore, the author didn’t leave their name, nor their flat number; they clearly didn’t want any open discussion about the problem.  I don’t believe a leaking rubbish bag could be considered indecent, nor does it demonstrate a lack of consideration on my part for my neighbours.  Purely being a pedant, I also object to the unnecessary use of quotation marks; the use of a string of full-stops rather than either a suitably placed comma, or failing that an incorrect use of ellipses; and the four exclamation marks.

Since cleaning the stairs, and leaving my reply, somebody from downstairs has knocked on the door to let me know it wasn’t them, and that they’d certainly let me know if they had any problems rather than leaving an anonymous note.  The woman also mentioned I’d failed to clean outside her door but that I needn’t worry about it; “the lady doth protest too much”.

I would much rather somebody tell me if they have a problem with me rather than anonymously moaning.  That way I can either politely tell them to sod off or try to reach some sort of compromise!