The video above is for the sound, not so much the view. It shows the lovely quiet at my place, one of the main reasons I bought this apartment — I’m near Nice city center, major streets, a few dozen yards from a bus stop that serves both Nice and Sophia Antipolis, and yet all you can hear from my apartment are church bells and birds. You’ll need to turn up the volume to hear the bells and birds. (That said, this video does have a car engine at one point, which I barely heard in reality — my phone picks up that range of sound much better than higher frequencies such as bird song.)

As an update for the threatening neighbor, a lot happened this week. First, background I’ve mentioned before but that is important enough to repeat: since I moved in, I tried speaking with the threatening neighbor once (read about it at that link). Because it was clear that she’s irrational and enjoys getting a rise out of people, I have never since engaged her — I never speak to her, never look at her, never even motion to her. In short, I pretend she does not exist. Also, Kanoko and I are entirely shut in: there is a roof covering my entire patio, wood walls on either side, and 1cm-square fencing from ground to roof and side to side. In other words, we cannot leave my patio. She cuts wires that hold my fencing together from time to time (I have witnessed this and have already gone to the police for it) in order to leave things on my patio; I close them back up ASAP.

To summarize what transpired this week, since I don’t want to give the details on my blog for several reasons, I learned that this threatening neighbor does in fact have a history of complaints filed concerning her physical violence and death threats against people and pets in her building, which history spans 18 years. I did not know that she had actually been violent until now. The good news is that with a third party (myself) also witnessing her threats, from a different building, and reporting it to the police, their building management was finally able to lodge an official complaint and request a formal investigation. (Why haven’t other neighbors spoken up? Well, it’s far, very far indeed, from the first time I’ve seen people say nothing when they witness someone else being wronged.) Let’s hope the police investigation is thorough and justice is served.

Also this week, just after the complaint was filed, I found meatballs on my patio two nights in a row after coming home from work. Obviously, with the threats to poison Kanoko, I imagine the meatballs were not just full of good things. Since I didn’t eye-witness their placement on my patio, I am unable to go to the police about it, even though only one neighbor shares and can access the inner courtyard, and that neighbor is the dangerous one. From now until whenever it is safe, I am only letting Kanoko outside when I can keep a direct eye on him. The video above shows what I mean: I sit next to the window and watch him, while reading a book or simply musing. Before, I would let him stay outside while I was on the computer and not necessarily paying close attention, but no longer.

Helpful readers have already suggested surveillance cameras, webcams, walling off the patio. I can’t afford a real surveillance camera; I tried my webcam but its focus is too narrow and I can’t afford a better one; walling off the patio is not an option for several reasons. Mainly, this is what happens when you are faced with truly dangerous, mentally ill people: you cannot entirely protect yourself. Only justice and the police can. You’re safer if you realize this. It’s the first thing you learn in any good self-defense course: learning how to fight is practically useless when faced with a true criminal, a desperate person or a mentally ill one. Your best defense is learning how to run, and run quickly, phoning the police and/or getting somewhere safe. So I wall off my patio? She’s shown evidence of paranoid and delusional thinking (just read about the one time I tried speaking with her or hear her for yourself) and has a history of violence. What’s to keep her from breaking it down or creating holes when she’s already cut my existing fence? I’d still have to scour my patio to make sure she hadn’t done such a thing to leave “gifts”. I’d rather keep my sunlight and be able to actually see what she’s up to. As for a camera, I keep my phone on me at all times now; if she tries anything while I’m home, I’ll film her again.

It seems life has decided that I require a course in different aspects of the French legal system. At the same time. To wit, real estate law and neighborhood law. My personal assignments would be a hidden defect (the shower that caused mold and rot) and a neighbor across from me who shares the courtyard, who threatens to kill my kitten (said kitten is quite literally caged into my patio; he can’t bother anyone besides me), sprays kitten and I with her garden hose, and who has now left excrement and dirty toilet paper on my patio several times.

Yes: excrement and dirty toilet paper. I have photos. I won’t post them, since I doubt anyone wants or needs to be reminded what poo looks like. And no, it was not poo from my cat, since it was far too large, plus I saw her put it on my patio. I could hardly believe my eyes, but there it was, my neighbor woman cutting wires that hold my fencing together while cackling, and then putting her hand through the newly-created hole to drop crap onto my patio.

I went to the commissariat to have another main courante written up, detailing the events I wrote above. (Apart from the dirty toilet paper, because that was what awaited me when I got home from visiting the police.) After speaking with the people in that neighbor’s building (she’s in a different one from mine), their building management was alerted, and is going to bring une plainte before the Procureur de la République, since there’s a long trail of mains courantes preceding mine. This means all parties shall be heard: people from the woman’s building, myself, and the woman concerned.

In these cases I appreciate having my blog — it helps to make such experiences feel less futile. As in, at least I can share my experiences in a way that others can learn from and/or relate to; there are plenty of people in France (just as everywhere) who have neighbor problems, so likely some of them are immigrants/expatriates, and it’s nice to know what actions can be taken when it gets serious. I’m lucky to have neighbors who have lived with the threatening woman for several years and so who were able to guide me; others aren’t that lucky. That said, I do wish it were never this serious. I’m getting sick of having to be on guard every time I let out my kitten; tired of wondering when the neighbor will storm out and start screaming at me when I water my plants; tired of having to pretend I don’t hear her when she does (I refuse to respond to her in any way, it would only make things worse); tired of wondering what kind of insecticide she sprays on her — and thus many of my — plants every two days (that is a fact, not an exaggeration); tired of hearing the foul insults she hurls at all the neighbors; tired of checking my kitten for any signs of poisoning and worrying whether I’ll come home from work to a deathly ill, or worse, dead, kitten one evening because I missed something.