If you’ve missed a step in the saga of My Apartment Building’s Landlords vs. The Dogs in My Apartment Building, here’s what’s gone down:
Indeterminate amount of time, prior to all this conflict: Pretty much a normal apartment building. Dogs are welcomed. Sometimes they poop on the stairs. Stairs don’t really get cleaned, but eventually the poop disappears. Not a big deal.
Two-ish months ago: I power rank the dogs of the building.
A month and a half ago: The building’s landlords send out a strangely aggressive email attempting to order us humans to narc on the dogs.
About a week ago: I give the all-clear. Things are back to normal.
Five days ago: A dog might have peed in the elevator. I note that the stairs have been getting pretty gross.
Well, there’s been new news. Check out the tape:
- I walked down the stairs the other day amidst the powerful smell of bleach.
- A closet door in my hallway was seen ajar, with the lights on in a room that evidently holds things like mops, brooms, and a large vacuuming machine.
- A man was sitting on the stairs today, holding a broom, watching YouTube videos, when I walked down them.
Yes, by the looks of it, the landlords have authorized (and perhaps even encouraged, or directed) a group of people to clean things like the stairs and the hall. It’s possible there’s always been a cleaning staff on site, but whether there was or wasn’t, I certainly never saw them (unlike the cleaning staff back in my building in Minneapolis, which was a solitary little middle-aged woman who happily greeted me every day in Spanish, which would give me an opportunity to remember that it’d be kind of fun to learn Spanish). Now, they’re ubiquitous. The elevators are spotless. The stairs are a little cleaner.
It’s unclear what would have caused this, but the possibility that it was the unidentified dog taking a leak in Elevator A makes me wonder whether that pup should be celebrated for his or her (or formerly his or formerly her) action-inducing act. Obviously, they shouldn’t do it again, but it’s a good lesson for all of us: Peeing places we aren’t supposed to pee draws attention.
