I can hear the downstairs neighbor's bathroom quite well. Lucky me. I can hear them peeing, running the faucet... the bathroom fan makes the floor rumble & sounds like a muffled lawnmower.
This was a different noise. I thought it was a tv; if it was loud enough, I theorized, as I put on some lotion, the sound could travel from the bedroom to the bathroom, and through the vents or however. It sounded like fighting; I thought it would suck if that wasn't the tv. It wasn't the tv.
It was a man shouting and a woman sobbing, a few slamming doors. What did I do? Tell me what I should have done. I didn't hear anything that sounded like physical violence, it could have been a normal fight, it could have been. After a just a couple of minutes, I heard the last door slam, then silence. Then the shower ran, then silence. So I did not call the police. I have been going back and forth: was this the reasonable or wimp-ass thing to do?
If it happens again, I will call. I will keep an ear open, so to speak.
Was it reluctance, was it fear, was it at least a little bit the possibility that nothing was seriously wrong? Yep yep yep.
Something was wrong, but not anything you could intervene with -- it isn't your business to deal with a domestic dispute unless you have a strong suspicion that someone has been badly hurt. Even then, you should be sure that you're right before you call the cops or else the angry person might turn his attention on you.
ReplyDeleteDon't mean to be scary, but I speak the truth.
Once, while driving with college friends through rural West Virginia, we very clearly saw a woman running out of a house with a man pursuing her. Both were screaming and the woman was crying. We drove past, had a brief and rather numb discussion until we decided that none of us felt very comfortable with just being observers to that scene, and so we turned around and went back to the house. By that time, neither the man nor the woman were there any longer, and so we continued along our way and kind of forgot about it. But it is always troubling. If people are just arguing, you don't want to complicate their lives by calling the police. On the other hand, who wants to find out after the fact that we made the wrong choice?
ReplyDeleteRight. Exactly. Thanks you guys, you helped me put it into words.
ReplyDeletei don't think you should call the cops unless you hear some sort of screaming like one or the other is obviously fearing for their lives. i've had seriously bad screamin matches with exes and if i had a dollar for every time the door slamed or my voice was loud enough to hear through walls and floors, i'd be wealthy.
ReplyDeleteI'll differ. I think you should call if you think there's a chance you should call. Better to be wrong than really wrong, if you see what I mean.
ReplyDeleteSee? See? argh, hard to know what to do. I have an extreme aversion to fighting, yelling, anger. So anything of this nature freaks me out, and how can I tell if I've overreacted until it's too late?
ReplyDeleteA few years ago, I was walking near downtown, saw a man kicking a woman and throwing stuff at her on the sidewalk, their kids watching; I called 911. I know I did the right thing then at least.
if it didn't sound like they were hitting each other then you shouldn't do anything. people argue. they get mad. they slam doors. it happens.
ReplyDelete