Dear Hana,

When the police came last time, they said it seemed the man was delusional. They said they were going to have him go to the hospital for a mental health assessment. This I do not know whether happened or not, as after checking in with me, they went to see him and I did not know what the outcome of that meeting was or what he said to them.What triggered my fear of not being believed, or worse, that I was the problem, was that the man seemed charming and “normal”, a “very very nice man” (my resident manager’s words. A woman). I tried to get her to see the discrepancy between his outward behaviour and what he does in the dark of the night (so to speak), but my anxiety these days stem from wondering how successful he is a manipulator (or his mental health conditions that affect his Hyde/Jekyll behaviour). I am grateful that you reassured me that I was at least not naive/wrong to seek him out the first instance. Yes, I did get the impression that what’s his outward is incongruent with what’s inside (he had just banged angrily at the wall out of frustration. And in person, 5 minutes later, he was all good manners and charm, being socially adept, asking the right questions and initiating pleasant exchanges such as our work. All the while there was a tension and animosity simmering under the surface of the slickness).

I am on pleasant but not familiar terms with the burly man and his family who live next door. The last time I crossed path with me had to be more than half a year ago. At Christmas in 2016, when he threw snow and uttered a threat, they were the first people I tried to seek out to check in with. They were home but ignored my knocks. I understood people’s concerns for their own safety with regard to unexpected knocks on their door.

Hana, you are right. I do believe the tenant would probably not have been as aggressive in his texts and their messages were I a man or with a man the first time I saw him. I am also small. Neither do I look particularly menacing or destructive.

I told the police most everything, apart from perhaps bits and pieces that I neglected to mention. I was candid with them, though in June, the officer in charge frightened me to tears as she appeared to accuse me of being in the wrong (the way she asked me, in a patronising tone that was totally uncalled for, “so, what’s going on?” when she had heard the details of my call to the station on her way here).

After the police incident, my resident manager (who has always insisted that he was a “very very nice man” “going out in the morning in his little bow tie on his bike” and other endearing manners of talking about him) has continued to be nonchalant. She *chatted* with him about the police visits. This time, she even relegated a message from him. He told her to tell me (no doubt the police would have asked him to stop harassing me by contacting me. That’s what they said what he was no longer supposed to be doing.) that “I won.” I found that greatly disturbing, explaining my gradual buildup of fear of the man’s depth of the delusion. I didn’t want anything to do with him; I wanted it to be the end of it. Once more he projected his beliefs/delusions onto me: that I engaged him in a “war” by “making the noises worse” after he complained, but somehow, in his eye now, “I’ve won” and “he’s lost”.

A number of friends and family have gently suggested that I moved away, and I am grateful that you attempted to do so gently with me. Thank you, Hana. Laziness and affordability are the reasons I have put off considering moving…