This is when we realize something is truly not right. Also, that she is alone and making this noise herself.
I become more worried as she begins screaming out her window at people in the street, demanding they call the police. Noises that sound like crumbling walls and sledgehammering is heard from her apt. I call 911. Redirected to 311. Nice.
Dan goes downstairs and outside to look for a patrol car around Lincoln center. Then things really start to go really crazy. She bashes out all her windows with whatever her weapon of choice was. Glass is raining down 5 stories to the ground. The few late night pedestrians and insomniacs stop and watch. She is shrieking nonsense about airports and locks, all the while throwing toxic liquids and full paint cans down into the streets.
I'm terrified. I am on the fire escape directly below this woman. She could come down and...well I don't even know...
The police finally arrive. They surround the scene and saunter up to her room, not taking the situation seriously enough. They try to reason with her (and by reason I mean saying things like "bi*ch is fu*king crazy" to each other) to open her apt for about 40 minutes, all the while she is yelling and claiming she can't and that she is locked in. The metal door is not easy to kick through in a small hallway, and the cops are avoiding it.
The situation inside is clearly escalating. Several of the cops suddenly run downstairs and slam on our door. "Open up now, open your window!!" They rush through my apartment and through the window up the fire escape. We hear screaming above as the rest of the cops finally try to slam through her door.
She has lit her paint-thinner doused apartment on fire.
Several of the cops run back down and herd us out the door. I'm barefoot in a robe. I run out, knocking on doors yelling "fire" on my way out. Dan gives me his shoes to walk across the thousands of shards of glass at the door as he braves it in socks. Soon after, she is dragged out by two haggard looking, chocking, shocked policemen. I have never, ever seen anyone look so crazy. She was thrashing and throwing herself in any direction, screaming.
The firefighters get there 10 minutes later. The blaze is put out with an excess of water. All I can think is "really should have taken my mom's advice on that renter's insurance"...Oh and also, OHMYGODOHMYGODMHMYGOD
2 hours later, and after I was interviewed by ABC news in my skivvies looking a total mess, we are let back in. My apartment got it the worst. Electricity is out.
Not the finest of photography, but I must say it wasn't my primary concern.
Frantic candlelit cleanup commences
downpour of disgusting yellow and black water from every light fixture and crack
Bulges form in the walls
The ceiling begins to saturate and drip
6AM aftermath. Obviously, I haven't slept at this point. Shards of glass from her window and my broken screen.
Paint she threw
I guess I'm pretty happy she didn't answer the door, after all.
Now my ceilings are being torn down and re-drywalled, floors fixed and walls repaired, and I move out in hefty bags to a new apt on the Upper East Side.
So on I go.
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