ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
“We should’ve just stayed in a hotel,” sighed some southern yuppie as she sat on her suitcase in the hallway of a French Quarter apartment complex.
Her partner sighed.
“Well, it’s too late now. I’m calling them.”
The power is out at Apartment 15 inside the fabled Pile de Rats building and down at the common fuseboard on the basement level, there’s evidence someone has glued the fuses in the off position.
The building manager had to inform the apartment’s owner that whoever had vandalised the fuse box had also shut the gas off and snapped the handle off.
Outside in the lane, they’d also worked out which tankless hot water system belonged to Number 15 and chopped the power cord off where it goes into the box.
While criminal in nature, the offences will require a significant police investigation. That’s the opinion of the landlord, who spoke to The Advocate a short time ago via a wired telephone.
“There’s no CCTV in the common areas, just at the entrance. So far, that’s yielded nothing out of the ordinary,” he said.
The apartment, which is on company title, has been rented out on a short-term basis for months without a problem. Something that contravenes the building’s by-laws, admits the landlord.
“It doesn’t excuse the malicious damage done to my property,” he said.
“There is a vigilante in the building who has taken it upon themselves to make sure people staying in my apartment are unable to do so. It’s cost me a fortune in call out fees. I have to have a new fuse box put in. I have to have a new cord put in the hot water. The gas company has to replace the entire valve,”
“And the worst part is, nobody cares. Not even the police. They looked me up and down at the station and laughed. One Constable at the front desk giggled as he said Major Crimes would be calling me this week about it,”
“I’m just trying to earn a living here.”
The Advocate reached out to the building manager for comment but were told they wouldn’t be commenting on what Clancy does in the privacy of his own apartment building.
More to come.
