July 25 Wednesday, Last night I was fast asleep, when at 11:55 pm, I was startled from my sleep by a series of loud bangs that sounded like they were coming from the kitchen. My bed is next the kitchen wall, so the direction of the clamor was easy to identify. Previously, if someone was getting up for a midnight snack, I might hear them move around, but not like this.
I quickly got dressed and made my way out to the hallway and down toward the kitchen only to see the landlady hurriedly walking toward the exit door. I called out, “What the hell is going on?” She didn’t even turn around but as she opened the door, she told me to, “Go back to bed John.” While those are the words she used, her tone and manner were much more abrasive and I know she left out two nasty words at the beginning of her comment.
I didn’t peruse her, but I could hear her talking to her husband but I couldn’t make it out. I returned to my bedroom and tried to go back to sleep, which took several hours. This wasn’t the first time that she has been up here in the middle of the night. Early in my stay here, I heard her vacuuming the floor after midnight, and a tenant I was speaking to the other day said he has heard vacuuming her as late at 3:00 am. A few weeks ago, I heard her preparing the room across the hallway from me at 3:00 am. When I went out to investigate the commotion that had woke me up, and she told me that this young guy needed a place to crash for the night and she was letting him have that room. Strange that a guy needs a room in a private house at 3:00 am and even stranger that she takes the call and lets him stay, like this is some kind of a motel.
