Friday, November 16, 2012

Barrio Blues


Most of the time I love living in the barrio but the last couple of weeks have not been so good.
There is a woman who lives a couple of doors down, looks to be aged around 60 but could be only 40, with a very annoying high pitched voice. She has a grandson called Pedrito and she screams for him constantly as never seems to know where he is and can’t be bothered going to look for him. This starts at 5 in the morning usually. She is the one who broke into the water supply so that she could get water to her house, put the tap in front of our gate, and now the street constantly floods as the taypee she used to stick the pipes together keeps falling off.


Our landlady, on seeing the state of the street told her to fix it or she would take the pipes away. Not my fault at all, as I didn't say a word, but it seemed to send this woman into some sort of evil revenge mode.
She decided that our house was a public health hazard because the dog poo smelled. Well there's a surprise. I have three dogs, and one, Silly Boy, a blind old rescued English Mastiff does do some pretty impressive poos.

Silly Boy

However, they are all scooped up at least twice a day, sealed in plastic bags and disposed off, and the concrete patio washed down with bleach. The fact that there are around 20 to 30 street dogs pooing and peeing in the street with kids running up and down barefoot does not appear to concern her. Nor does the face her grandson, Pedrito is always in our supposedly unsanitary house and garden eating and using the internet.
She has taken to calling the Public Health department to complain about Silly Boys poo. They have done nothing, not surprisingly really.

Belinda

A couple of weeks ago, one of my dogs, Belinda the Great Dane puppy became very sick. I won’t go into details in case you are eating, but it was very messy for 5 days. The vet diagnosed probable poisoning but luckily we managed to save her with intense nursing, expensive medicines and sleepless nights. She is now fine thank goodness.
A few days later, a man came to video the house on the instructions of the owner as the house is for sale and he wants a video made to show to potential buyers in Nuevo Yol (New York) and she thought he was from the Public Health department. On finding out he wasn't she went into a total banshee screaming rage and the next day 3 of my cats were poisoned and died.

R.I.P. Squeak, Bubblita and Rabo Blanco

No proof it was her of course.
I really do not understand what her problem is, but other neighbours have said she is jealous and I must admit I have seen this type of behaviour before where a few Dominicans have been jealous and do the most nasty things to the people they are jealous of.
Hopefully we will move shortly before I run out of animals for her to poison, and in the meantime the next time she passes me in the street and calls me “Mi amoy” (should be mi amor but she has a strong accent) I will punch her in the face. Well, I probably won’t but I will feel like it.

The washing machine also died this week and had to be taken off to hospital.


Luckily I had a replacement - my husband and Chivirico and they did all the washing by hand! The washing machine returned supposedly all fixed but minus the drain hose so now when you empty the water it goes all over the floor. Hey Ho.


On a brighter note I am off camping in my favourite part of the country, the south west this weekend so I should have some interesting tales for the next post. Also the blog is on a new site where you can vote for your favourite blog and leave a comment. The site is called expatsblog and you can find it here. If you have a chance do check out the other Dominican Republic blogs as there are some great ones there, and if you want to vote for this one and leave a comment, that would be very nice too!

11 comments:

  1. Seriously??? How disgusting. I don't generally advocate vigilantism, but this woman needs to be dealt with informally. Or you could pay some Dominican cops to put a scaring to her about it and that if anything happens to anymore of your pets, they'll be seeing her again and possibly hauling her off to jail. I feel she would probably be scared at that point (but i could be wrong). Sorry about your cats :(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The trouble is I have no proof. I did call the police and they said if I could find proof they would deal with her. I told them I thought they were supposed to be the detectives and the very nice man told me that was not part of the job.

      Delete
    2. Nothing that a case of beer and some pesos couldn't fix i feel like. Just to give her a talking to that even though we can't prove anything, if anything happens, you may have to deal with the police more than you'd like which is never a good thing. Although the whole beer and pesos is giving into corruption, but I feel like the death of your poor cats is worth it....this woman sounds so evil!

      Delete
  2. Oh no, sorry for you cats. How can anyone be so mean to do something like this?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks Sami. Many Dominicans do not feel the same way about animals as we do, so she will have had no qualms at all about doing it.

      Delete
  3. I am so sorry for your cats, that's is so sad. I know how you feel, there are many jealous neighbors were I live too! Take care of your dogs.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Sorry to hear that Mari but glad too know it is not just me. Will try and take care of the dogs but they live inside and outside and you can't be watching 24 hours a day to see if someone throws something over the wall. Fingers crossed there will be no more problems.

      Delete
  4. This is a nightmare! I hope that when you get back home she has gotten over her nonsense. I know that many Dominicans like to be wrong and strong.... some example she is setting for her grandson!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wrong and strong - never heard that before but is a good one.

      Delete
  5. Sorry to hear you're having a tough time, Lindsay. I never cease to be amazed by how unpleasant some people can by. You just have to hope they get their come-uppance one day.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hey Lindsay, really sorry to hear about the death of your cats. Please be careful in dealing with this woman, in spending time in the DR over the last ten years I can tell you for sure that Dominicans are amazing and loving people when things are good but can be nasty and vengeful when things turn sour. Please watch your back. Love the blog

    ReplyDelete