Breaker HotBoxing

The other day I smelled weed in my home. Besides the three times our dog, Bailey, ingested spent marijuana cigarettes on the sidwalk in front of our building and subsequently gorged on Beggin Strips and Taco Bell, our home has been weed free. So this was a rare intrusion. After Lauren and Bailey both passed lie detecter and drug tests, I set out to find the source. I sniffed everywhere in my apartment. As hard as I tried to isolate the point of entry I couldn't smell it anywhere except the electrical breaker box. It made no sense. As a last resort I opened it and smelled a rush of the good stuff.

We've had run-ins with smokers in our building before. A few years ago, a resident down the hall smoked weed every day. The smoke would waft all the way down the hall and right into our apartment. I reported it every time—every building needs a Karen—and every time, nothing happened. Our building couldn't do anything except build a case against the guy. That's how the law's setup in New York: it protects tenants even if they're being dickheads. After a year of smelling weed and getting second-hand high—not the worst way to spend a year, Bailey said—our building finally made us an offer: we could move to the same apartment 11 floors up and they'd lower our rent. What?! Not wanting to look a stoned gift horse in the mouth, we accepted the offer.

The morning of the day before our move, I took Bailey for her usual morning walk. As I rounded the corner of our hallway, I saw a uniformed police officer sitting in a chair down the hall, right in front of The Smoker's door.

"Morning!" I said. I'm that kind of neighbor.

"Morning."

Playing hard to get, I see. "Can I get you a coffee?" I pushed the elevator call button to keep up appearances, but I had no intention of getting into the car.

She smiled. "No thanks. I'm good."

I was getting stonewalled by New York's Finest. How was I supposed to get the scoop? I should have known she'd be trained to resist interrogation... I wasn't going to get much out of her without a fight. The elevator door opened and for a moment I stood there, staring at the cop, wondering whether to walk down the hall for a chat. But Bailey whined. So we hopped on and went about our walk. The next day, just as we were closing our door for the last time, a resident told me that The Smoker was arrested for domestic violence and evicted.

It's been three years since we tried to put some distance between us and him, but this whiff was a pungent reminder that no matter how much we try to distance ourselves from others, we're still connected. There’s always going to be someone doing something somewhere that’s going to annoy someone.