Animal Owners Aren’t Necessarily Nice People
August 17th 2008 21:00
Photo by Fir0002. Used in accordance with the terms of Wikimedia Commons’ GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts, and no Back-Cover Texts.
Call me naïve but to this day, if I find out someone has a pet, I assume they are a nice person. Now anyone knows this isn’t necessarily true. Just look at how often animal abuse stories appear in the local paper. Some of my worst neighbours owned animals.
First there was Anne*. Nicknamed Dog Woman by some of the tenants, she was always fussing over the car park. Because she had lived in the building for so long and had 24/7 access to the laundry, she started to believe she owned the building and would harass people who wanted to temporarily borrow the tradesperson’s car park, even though it was understood that that spot was for guests to use when the tradespeople weren’t using it. She would also go around asking people for favours. She owned a small dog that had a wonky leg. Anne wouldn’t get the dog’s leg fixed so it walked around for months with a stiff leg.
Then there was Gioia*. Racist, sexist, homophobic, disablist Gioia who moved from the Hunter Valley to Sydney. She threw loud parties and, despite the fact she was Italian, was prejudiced in every form possible. She went around hurling abuse at anyone who asked her to be quiet. Her vocabulary mainly consisted of four letter words, with a temper to match Gordon Ramsay’s. Gioia also owned a small dog. She made such a racket 14 people complained to the real estate agent about her. Eventually Gioia was evicted but it still took a visit from the sheriff to throw her out.
Lastly, there was Maggie*. Like Dog Woman, she owns a small dog and had also lived in her building long enough for her to believe she ran the place. She spent her free time fussing over the garden, telling the caretaker where to put the bins and spreading malicious rumours about other people. She would also ask her neighbours to do things for her to the point where she had one guy buying milk from the supermarket for her each day. The other tenants used to keep a lookout for her and quickly dart in and out of the building to avoid her.
Three neurotic female dog owners. Three nightmare neighbours who were hated by most of the tenants in the buildings they lived. I still dread running into them. I also feel sorry for their dogs.
* names changed
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