Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Kiddirts]

Any crazy roommate stories out there? My brother got a new roommate who sits on the internet all day long...and refuses to pay his 1/3 share for that utility. I'm sure there's some good stories out there, so what's been the worst?

[jazblanc77]

Actually, mine is a story about a crazy neighbour whom I also worked with. This was last year at a time when I lived in a apartment above my school in rural Korea. There were 3 apartments which were to be the residences of the foreign staff. At the time of this story, there were only two foreigners living there, myself and a Korean-American woman that I will just call "Crazy", which is exactly what other foreigners call her around town! I also lived with my Korean fiance at that time.

I had been working at that school for 3 months when Crazy joined the staff. At first, she was friendly and she became friends with my fiance and I. We taught her how to play Go-Stop (Hwatu), showed her around town, introduced her around, and helped her whenever she needed any help (doctors, shopping, etc.) as she didn't speak a word of Korean. It was during this time as her friend that we found out that she had been in Korea the year before but HAD to leave after a couple of months because she had a nervous breakdown about the conditions in Korea. She had actually gotten on a plane to her home country but when she went to make her connection in Japan, they refused her passage and put her in a hospital until her father was able to come and claim her a month later. She also revealed to us that she hated all caucasian men because she had had some bad experiences growing up as a Korean-American. As her friends, we never dreamed that her history would play against us.

***

The sh** hit the fan when the bills for the utilities came in on after her second month (or third perhaps?). Now, the employer usually paid for everything except for the gas and the phone and occasionally the water or electricity if it was exorbitant. Anyways, she didn't like the way the costs were split and refused to pay. I discussed it with the employer and we decided upon what was fair and I paid him.

***

She was only lukewarm just before this incident but, I guess we were not friends afterwards. Actually, saying just "not friends" is an understatement as we discovered that she had a full-on hatred for us. She moved one apartment over so that she could live farther away from us, she started slamming doors, and turning up her TV (she had a really big one and the walls were paper thin). We thought it odd but maybe she just didn't realise how noisy that was. So, one day, I knocked on her door when the TV was blasting, and, to my surprise, the door didn't even open, however, the TV did get louder. I gave up! This recurred several times in the same fashion until 2 or 3 in the morning and finally, I decided to ask her what the problem was. Since she wouldn't answer her door, I was forced to get her when she was in the office. So, I blocked her in the office one day and asked her if there was a problem between us since I couldn't think of a reason why she would behave that way to my fiance and I. She just replied that I am "very noisy at night and it have to stop" since she always goes to bed at 10 pm. I apologised and said that I didn't realise that we were noisy at night and that we would try to be quieter. I asked her to please stop trying to get revenge on me for what she thought I must have been intentionally doing and she just walked out of the office and slammed every door on her way. I suppose that meant that the conversation was over. So, my fiance and I practically tip-toed around our apartment for over a month. We whispered when we were home, tried to quietly slide the door and deadlock behind us while coming and going, kept the TV down and didn't play music ever, and kept the door and window closed at all time in case any noise might slip out. We did this not to be considerate but to be unnoticed because if she knew that we were home, the TV would get blasted to a point that we could turn off the sound completely and watch the same channel as her. She also continued to slam doors and turned off the hot water whenever we took a shower (the control panel was in the hallway outside her door). This went on for a couple of months and we were going completely crazy. We pleaded with my boss, who is also the building manager, to do something but he didn't believe us.

Time passed and I invited my parents to come to Korea for my wedding. By this time, I was really looking forward to going on vacation after the wedding with them (far away from our apartment and Crazy). By this time, she was even slamming doors at work and if I came into the same room, she would bolt for the nearest exit. There were two doors to the office and even took up the habit of going out the most inconvenient one so that she wouldn't have to pass behind my desk chair.

My parents arrived in the first week in September, two days before the wedding. They had been travelling for over 24 hours so we had a quick visit at which time I warned them to be very quiet and then they went next door to the vacant apartment between mine and Crazy's. I knew that Crazy hated my fiance and I but I couldn't imagine that she would take out her plans of vengeance against my parents. I was wrong. As soon as my parents closed the door to the apartment, the TV came on. So, we waited for 45 minutes (until it was past 12 am) and politely knocked on her door. No answer. She was obviously going to follow the routine of ignoring me so I shouted through her door to please make an exception for one night because my parents had been travelling for a long time and that our problems shouldn't be made theirs. To no avail!

So, we (my fiance and I) waited a while longer and then decided to walk to the police station where we explained the situation and asked for help. Two officers came back to the apartments with us and started knocking on her door and demanding her to open up. The TV shut off after about 5 minutes of this but she refused to open up. The younger cop got really pissed and wanted to break the door down and arrest her but the older one calmed him down. They told us to call again if she does it again and left. The next day, I went to work early and demanded that the director get involved or he would lose me as an employee. He called a meeting between us where he would mediate.

The meeting commences and she comes in with an innocent, angelic expression and accompanying body language. She acts completely surprised that we have any problem at all and begins to lie through her teeth about everything saying that she thought her TV was at a reasonable level, that we were always really noisy, and that WE slammed doors. I was shocked but prepared so after I informed her that she was a rotten little liar of the likes I had never come across before, I let her in on a little secret, I had a sound/video recording of one of her previous incidents on my new digital video camera. She turned an ivory white kind of pale so quickly!

The meeting accomplished very little. The denied any wrong doing and walked out an "innocent" much as she had walked in. After lunch, I came back into the office and once I sat down, she turned to me and snarled, "By the way, if you ever call the police on me again I will be contacting my family's international lawyer". She told me a name that must have been something meant to impress and scare me. I don't imagine Johnny Cochrane does international law does he? She did that right in front of the director, making his jaw drop as she bolted for the door in her regular style.

It was quiet that night but she made a point of turning up her TV for an hour on the night before our wedding at which time my father knocked on her door, only to get berated by a poltergeist sounding voice from Crazy's side of the door once he identifed himslef. The same occured the next morning, the morning of our wedding. She didn't show at the wedding (thank god!), and we didn't see her for two weeks as we went on vacation far away from her.

****

After my parents left, things died down a bit and at least she stopped doing the TV thing. Though, for the remainder of my contract, she continued to slam doors all the time, especially in the morning, turning off our hot water, and avoiding us like the plague. She became completely recluse and would occasionally comment to other teachers that she hated Korea and Koreans and everything invoved with either.

The only time that she ever talked to me since my wedding was when she knocked on my door one day, asking me to help her build a case against the director of the school which would be used to "destroy" him with the help of her renouned international lawyer. I laughed at her and asked her to leave my apartment!

This is the mild version of the story but I can't imagine anyone is interested in hearing every aspect of that ordeal. Let's just say that it was a really freakin stressful time. Between her and my director (a whole other story), the stress I was was under as a result of them gave me an ulcer, chronic stress headaches, and a lot of sleepless nights.

I was sooooooo happy to get out of that school and apartment!

We didn't hear anything from her until the night before the wedding. She turned up her TV

[jazblanc77]

By the way, forgive any bad grammar, etc. I didn't proofread that posting at all.

[jazblanc77]

Hey, if anyone wants to come to Kyoungbuk in the first week of May, I am throwing a going away party for Crazy. She is not invited!

[Mr. Pink]

I don't know how you could live with such a crazy neighbour.

I know I'd go crazy and end up kicking the crap out of her, or hiring someone to do it. Or just quitting my job.

[waterbaby]

There's a very long, funny and lively read called Freakiest Waygook Competition floating around so lets keep all our crazy stories there.

Cheers,
waterbaby