Speaking of doorbells, something odd is going on at my place. There are three active members here who have been to my place, but for all others, I have a long hallway that runs along a small courtyard. It's really tiny and it even has a transparent roof over it, and most flats have one or two windows facing it. As you might imagine, it echoes really loudly there, and when one of my windows there is open, I can hear everything that's going on.
So anyway, the other night, I wake up at 4:30 am. It takes a moment to gather my senses, but then I realise that somebody is ringing the doorbell for the place downstairs. Not the actual flat door, but that of the house door. And that person isn't just ringing the doorbell - he has the finger on the bell for over twenty minutes. Not stopping and ringing again, but keeping it pressed. And twenty minutes isn't an exaggeration, it was literally at least that long. I don't know how long it was ringing before I woke up.
Now, the odd thing is this: I live right over a children's doctor's office. So it's empty in the afternoon, at night and on weekends. Nobody would be expected to be there at 4:30 am. Sometimes there's a janitor there at 23:00, but that's it. I slowly get up and look in the courtyard while the ringing is still going on, and I see that the light there is on. I don't have any windows facing the house door, but I still open one of my living room windows in case I can see if anything is going on. I see a woman passing by with her dog, and the moment she turns around the corner and must be passing my front door, the ringing stops... only to start again a minute later.
In case you're wondering why I didn't go downstairs to check (there is a glass window at the front door), I live in a very sketchy area with a high crime rate and many immigrants. It's simply not the area where you just open the door to strangers at 4 am.
Anyway, the ringing stops at some point, but a few minutes later, I hear raised voices downstairs in a language I couldn't identify. What troubles me most about this is that this isn't the first time this has occurred. Last Friday, I heard a similar ringing at around 2 or 3 am, but I couldn't locate it then because I was drunk. I decided to observe this over the weekend and if I hear it again, I'll ask the people working in the office about it on Monday morning.
So anyway, the other night, I wake up at 4:30 am. It takes a moment to gather my senses, but then I realise that somebody is ringing the doorbell for the place downstairs. Not the actual flat door, but that of the house door. And that person isn't just ringing the doorbell - he has the finger on the bell for over twenty minutes. Not stopping and ringing again, but keeping it pressed. And twenty minutes isn't an exaggeration, it was literally at least that long. I don't know how long it was ringing before I woke up.
Now, the odd thing is this: I live right over a children's doctor's office. So it's empty in the afternoon, at night and on weekends. Nobody would be expected to be there at 4:30 am. Sometimes there's a janitor there at 23:00, but that's it. I slowly get up and look in the courtyard while the ringing is still going on, and I see that the light there is on. I don't have any windows facing the house door, but I still open one of my living room windows in case I can see if anything is going on. I see a woman passing by with her dog, and the moment she turns around the corner and must be passing my front door, the ringing stops... only to start again a minute later.
In case you're wondering why I didn't go downstairs to check (there is a glass window at the front door), I live in a very sketchy area with a high crime rate and many immigrants. It's simply not the area where you just open the door to strangers at 4 am.
Anyway, the ringing stops at some point, but a few minutes later, I hear raised voices downstairs in a language I couldn't identify. What troubles me most about this is that this isn't the first time this has occurred. Last Friday, I heard a similar ringing at around 2 or 3 am, but I couldn't locate it then because I was drunk. I decided to observe this over the weekend and if I hear it again, I'll ask the people working in the office about it on Monday morning.
