by Dr. David Fialkoff, Editor / Publisher

It's hard for me not to take it personally, but it's not personal. They are just not nice people, not to me or anyone else in the neighborhood. Every friendly overture I've made in their direction has been ignored, fallen flat. Aside from the grandchildren, I don't think I've ever seen one of them smile, certainly not at me.

Their large, extended family lives in a small, windowless hovel across the street from me. Not long before I arrived here 20 months ago, two family members, an adult son and then a daughter-in-law, another son's wife, died. Since I moved in, the other adult son was murdered (far from here) in gang-related violence and his father, the patriarch of the family, died of natural causes.

The old man (about my age) was a driver for a local ride service, whom I approached with friendly chatter a couple of times while he worked on his car in front of his house. The memorial gathering that took place outdoors in front of the house, was, all at once, punctuated by a cacophony car horns coming up the road. Louder and louder, it turned out to be a parade of his colleagues, taxis and ride service cars driving by in tribute, honking. The procession stretched around the block, as I saw the first taxis come around again for a second pass. It was an impressive, touching send off. I don't blame the old man. If I had to live crammed in with so many people into such a small space, I'd probably be unfriendly too.

I met the matriarch, M., a woman somewhat younger than me, when, on leaving colonia San Antonio (where I had lived for 12 years) I moved in with an acquaintance of mine who lived one block over from my present abode. She cleaned his house.

M. also functions as the cleaning lady of, and has the keys to, the apartment above mine. That apartment, whose owner is a resident of California, is occupied less than 20 days each year, including usage by the owner's Guanajuato-based extended family. At least, that would be the case if it weren't for the fact that M. uses the place like a hotel for her own guests.

I remember this, no doubt unauthorized, usage beginning during the weeks surrounding the funerals. M. housed her guests, every night, quite a variety of them, upstairs in the apartment. Since then, this practice has continued, not every night but, at least, one or two nights every week.

Especially after my downstairs neighbors (a lovely couple with two young children) moved out last autumn, rendering the place much more monklike, the process of having my now secluded existence interrupted by strangers entering and moving through the property day and especially late at night disturbed me: the big metal street door clanging, the motion-sensitive patio lights flashing on, voices on the stairway, noises from upstairs.

I took a lot of deep breaths, and, even with a few trips upstairs to ask them to close their stairway door, I never let my irritable tendency get the best of me. I tried to convince myself that, living alone as I do, it was good to have even temporary neighbors, even an assortment of strangers within shouting distance in case (God forbid) I needed help. Then, when the youngest of M.'s three daughters (all resident across the street) and her boyfriend used the apartment as a love-nest as they did one or two nights each week, it actually made me happy: All the world loves a lover.

I tried not to let it bother me, even when I came to suspect that M. was charging rent to at least some of her guests. The family is poor. They need to get by.

What did bother me though was M. complaining to the owner of the upstairs apartment about an assortment of boxes I kept on the landing outside my door. Word of this got back to me through K., whom I have known for years, the daughter of my landlady. After moving the boxes, I wrote K: "There always was plenty of room to pass, even carrying suitcases. And, anyway, I don't see how those few boxes could be a safety issue when I am the only one in the building."

It also bothered me how generally unfriendly M. was to me. It was an issue of power, asserting dominance, protecting her interests, even though I never threatened her interests. I know that her family has lived here forever, and that I just showed up 20 months ago, but I am the one paying rent on this side of the street.

Mexicans believe in witchcraft, brujeria: the evil eye, black magic, bad omens... You can believe whatever you like, but for the last year I have been under psychic assault, psychological warfare, with strangers invading my space, disturbing the peace of my days and evenings. Imagine strangers passing though your patio without notice as you are getting ready to go to bed.

Everything abruptly changed when, almost two months ago, the owner of the upstairs apartment, her daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren came to visit. They visited for only three or four days. But since they left, no one has even been upstairs, let alone spent the night. Earlier this week, I learned why.

In addition to no one going upstairs for the last two month, M.'s grandchildren haven't been coming over to harvest lemons from the tree in the front patio. Having more than I can use myself, earlier this week I brought a bag of the small yellow fruits over to M. as a peace offering. Handing them to her in her doorway, I pleaded that I was not her enemy, and asked her not to denounce me for my storage (currently non-existent) outside my door. Lying to my face, she denied that she had ever done so. Advocating a more neighborly relationship, I told her to let me know when the apartment owner or her family was coming to visit, and that I would clear away whatever I had on the landing before they arrived. When I added that sometimes I would like to go up on the roof, the private domain of the third floor apartment, without her denouncing me for that (as she has done), M. told me that I couldn't because the owner had installed cameras up there.

Now the sudden disoccupation of the third floor made sense. M. believes that there are cameras recording the roof and apartment. I had my doubts, at least about the roof, but I remained quiet. I had already been up to the roof a few times in the last two months and no one noticed. After my conversation with M., I went up again.

The next day, K, my landlady's daughter forwarded me a message she had just received from the owner of the upstairs apartment, noting that I had, against the rules, been up to the roof three times. It seems that her son-in-law did install a motion-sensitive camera and a way to relay the video to California. You have to love technology.

Not going up to the roof is a small price to pay for getting my privacy back, regaining my tranquility, breaking the spell that my neighbor was weaving around me.

They say that young women under stress are more subject to spirit possession ("disassociation," if you prefer psychological jargon). I was under a little stress there. But with a great deal of confidence in my own magic, I never lost a moment of sleep over the psychic war. Still, I'm glad it's over.

Even with this resolution, I am strongly considering moving from this inexpensive, lovely, light-filled, quiet apartment, with more than one great view. If you might be interested in moving in, please contact me at this email address:

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Dr. David Fialkoff presents Lokkal, public internet, building community, strengthening the local economy. If you can, please do contribute content, or your hard-earned cash, to support Lokkal, SMA's Voice. Use the orange, Paypal donate button below. Thank you.

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