Darkly humorous form letters
A couple of days ago Steve and I found a letter attached to the door of our apartment. It was a form letter from the management of the apartment complex. This is what it said:
"To all residents of the [X apartment complex]
[checkbox] We have been recently informed that a ________ has occurred in the [building Y]. You, your family, co-residents, occupants and visitors need to be as careful as possible for your own security and safety. For this reason, we recommend that you be especially cautious.
OR
[checkbox] We have just learned that one of our residents or occupants may have been convicted or placed under some type of court order regarding a sex-related crime or other crime of violence.
etc, etc."
There was more to it -- other multiple choices, each describing a potential "unpleasantness" that might have occurred -- but it's too long and tedious to quote here. Each was prefaced by a checkbox, but only the first checkbox was checked. The blank was filled in with "attempted murder approximately 12:20 a.m."
A month or two ago we got an identical form letter, only that time the "blank" was a robbery with a knife in the parking lot. It's getting better: this time, an attempted murder. The letter did not specify the circumstances of the attempted murder: did a stranger break in and tried to kill the resident(s)? Or was it the resident(s) friend? Or an instance of domestic violence? The latter two would feel more comforting to me than the idea that this is a kind of place where you could expect someone to break in and kill you.
I could go and ask the apartment management; not sure if I will. Oddly enough, one of my former coworkers used to live in this apartment complex years ago. What's odd is not this fact in itself, but the fact that I had not realized it at first. I should have, because I had been to his place once, possibly even twice. But I did not put two and two together until mrs_howevillepointed it out when she and Chris visited us around New Year.
And now I remember the ex-coworker saying that his car was broken into at least twice while he lived here; and once there was a fire in the apartment next to his, in the middle of the night, but he did not wake up until the firefighters started banging on his door. Or something like that. His apartment got badly damaged in the fire.
Given all this, it does not sound like a very appealing place to live in. Still, even if I had remembered these facts before we signed the lease, I'm not sure it would have deterred me from moving here. Even in the more upscale Riata apartment complex there had been several robberies, some at gunpoint, and several car thefts and break-ins while I was living there. So maybe those things happen everywhere and no apartment complex is completely safe. I don't know.
I'm just saying there is some dark, macabre humor in a fill-in-the-blank-with-crime form letter.
"To all residents of the [X apartment complex]
[checkbox] We have been recently informed that a ________ has occurred in the [building Y]. You, your family, co-residents, occupants and visitors need to be as careful as possible for your own security and safety. For this reason, we recommend that you be especially cautious.
OR
[checkbox] We have just learned that one of our residents or occupants may have been convicted or placed under some type of court order regarding a sex-related crime or other crime of violence.
etc, etc."
There was more to it -- other multiple choices, each describing a potential "unpleasantness" that might have occurred -- but it's too long and tedious to quote here. Each was prefaced by a checkbox, but only the first checkbox was checked. The blank was filled in with "attempted murder approximately 12:20 a.m."
A month or two ago we got an identical form letter, only that time the "blank" was a robbery with a knife in the parking lot. It's getting better: this time, an attempted murder. The letter did not specify the circumstances of the attempted murder: did a stranger break in and tried to kill the resident(s)? Or was it the resident(s) friend? Or an instance of domestic violence? The latter two would feel more comforting to me than the idea that this is a kind of place where you could expect someone to break in and kill you.
I could go and ask the apartment management; not sure if I will. Oddly enough, one of my former coworkers used to live in this apartment complex years ago. What's odd is not this fact in itself, but the fact that I had not realized it at first. I should have, because I had been to his place once, possibly even twice. But I did not put two and two together until mrs_howevillepointed it out when she and Chris visited us around New Year.
And now I remember the ex-coworker saying that his car was broken into at least twice while he lived here; and once there was a fire in the apartment next to his, in the middle of the night, but he did not wake up until the firefighters started banging on his door. Or something like that. His apartment got badly damaged in the fire.
Given all this, it does not sound like a very appealing place to live in. Still, even if I had remembered these facts before we signed the lease, I'm not sure it would have deterred me from moving here. Even in the more upscale Riata apartment complex there had been several robberies, some at gunpoint, and several car thefts and break-ins while I was living there. So maybe those things happen everywhere and no apartment complex is completely safe. I don't know.
I'm just saying there is some dark, macabre humor in a fill-in-the-blank-with-crime form letter.