Sputterpub's Blog

They finally took Bertilda’s car. Her conservator showed up with a colleague and official papers. I happened to be in my front yard and was recruited as a witness or interpretor.

The conservator’s name is Leah. She’s a plump black woman probably in her 40s, with creamy chocolate skin and straightened hair. Leah has a Masters in social work and has been with the county for almost a decade. She’s experienced and warm and patient. Too patient, in my opinion. Too bureaucratic, but she works for a bureau so I shouldn’t be surprised.

Leah thinks she’s encountered clients like Bertilda before, but I doubt it. I’m sure Alameda county has a number of deranged senior citizens. I’ll bet many of them are isolated and either inherently damaged or veterans of the early drug years. I googled “What do I do about my crazy neighbor?” and was swamped by all the Internet complaints about filth, noise and weapons. But I’ve lived and watched people for over 60 years, in a number of populated areas, and I’ve never encountered a personality like Bertilda’s.

Remember the Looney Tunes Tasmanian Devil? That’s what Bertilda reminds me of: a being who is whipping like a cyclone along life’s path, spewing anger and hostility in all directions. Taz was consumed with anger. Bertilda’s passion is hate.

As mentioned, Leah was not alone. Her colleague was younger, male, and so dark of skin he looked Ethiopian, so narrow of feature he seemed Eritrean. A well-dressed, soft spoken young man.

I hung back a bit, next to the young man, while Leah spoke to Bertilda. “We have to take the car now, honey.” Bertilda’s face was carrying its usual sore expression. She looks hostile even when she is trying to smile.

“You can’t take my car.”

“We have to. It’s not registered. Your license isn’t valid.”

Bertilda looked confused for a moment. Then she raged. “That’s bullshit! You’re Communists! Think you can just show up and take my things!”

Leah took a step closer. Bertilda read her face and changed her own demeanor. We’ve all seen how fast she can cycle from rage to reason to rage again. “I don’t understand,” she said.

Leah handed her the papers. “We’re here to help you, sweetheart. We can take you to the store. We can bring you food.”

“Fuck you! I don’t need any help! I’m a strong independent woman! You’re Nazis!” She stomped toward the sidewalk. The tow truck had arrived and the driver was connecting Bertilda’s car to hardware. Bertilda swung her leg to kick the driver but he saw her and dodged.

“Ms. Wagner!” Now Leah’s voice had a little forcefulness. Bertilda looked at her, grimaced, tried to smile, wailed “Arrggh!”

She calmed again. “I tell you, I don’t need help. My mother lived to be 90. I take after her.” She seemed to look inside her head. “She’s old now. That’s why I call her every day. I have to check on her.” Bertilda’s mother is of course no longer alive. And Bertilda’s phone hasn’t worked in months.

“I’m sure,” Leah consoled. “And I can tell you’re strong. It’s obvious that you’re fit.”

“Hmph,” Bertilda said. Then she noticed that the truck driver was in his cab and about to depart. She dashed toward her car but failed to reach it before it was pulled away.

There really wasn’t anything for me to do. I couldn’t communicate the situation any better than Leah was. No one can. Bertilda is no longer able to care for herself, but she doesn’t know that. She’s losing her memory but she’s certain all the rest of us are misremembering, and not herself. I loathe and despise the nasty little old woman, and I want to stay away from her. She’s repulsive. She also may be dangerous. If she associates my face with the intervention she may lash out at my property. I could come home to broken windows.

Our little party dispersed. I retreated to my house, and Leah and her colleague drove off.

I don’t get it. Adult Protective Services was the only agency we could call. It’s their job to deal with grownups who can’t care for themselves and have no other resources. I’m one of a half dozen concerned neighbors who phoned in about Bertilda. We were all told that, to protect Bertilda’s privacy, we would not be fully informed about APS’s activities. But we learned that our calls weren’t the first reports. APS has had a file on her for four years. They sent specialists to evaluate her when they first became involved. They mentioned something to my neighbor Anne about what a shame it is that Bertilda refused to take the medications they arranged for her.

So they know about her. They have notes all over her file about her “noncompliance.” They summoned her to court and she failed to appear. The court appointed a county conservator for her. Leah then told us it would take about three months to gather together the information about Bertilda’s health, assets, and liabilities. As soon as the court awarded conservatorship, APS began paying Bertilda’s bills for her. But APS is otherwise acting like it’s a brand new file. They know she’s been unwell and uncooperative four years, three years, two years, and one year ago, but they now have to discover afresh? Bertilda last registered her car three years back. She doesn’t have a valid driver’s license. She hasn’t paid taxes or insurance premiums in more than four years. She no longer pays her phone or electricity bills, her HOA dues, or any other invoice. She no longer trusts any bank. She has lost the key to her mailbox and she regularly misplaces the keys to her house. She doesn’t bathe, cook, or discard anything. She adopted a stray cat and we have no idea what she feeds the animal, but we all see it squatting and straining to shit, in daylight, in open areas, which is not what any well cat does.

We all get it that the wheels turn slowly. We understand Bertilda’s privacy should be protected, her rights preserved. We’re starting to have an idea that the three months Leah mentioned isn’t so much about gathering information as it is about going through a probationary period. Her conservator must have some checklist that needs completion, some rules that require her to find home aides and try to place one with Bertilda. Leah has no reason to believe that will work. She makes statements about “baby steps” one minute and “I know it won’t work” the next. She just told me that there will be another court date in two months, when the conservatorship will be made final.

Meanwhile, what can we do but hope that nothing goes wrong? We read about malfeasants who commit crimes even though they were in the mental health pipeline – just not far enough in the pipe to be prevented from hurting others. We figure odds are it won’t happen here. We hope.

The car removal was five days ago. Predictably, Bertilda soon forgot the circumstances of the removal but did not forget to be outraged, enraged, and voluble. She has been making the circuit of Anne’s place, Jerry’s place, and mine (at least – I suspect her complaints have taken her to other neighbors by now). She knocks on my door every few hours. She starts with a simper and then cranks herself up.

“Did you see who took my car?

“They stole my car.

“It happens every day.

“My enemies steal my car every morning and bring it back when I’m asleep.

“They can’t do that!

“I hate you Americans.

“You can eat shit!

“Fuck. You. All!”

That’s our neighbor. She used to drive that car to the store across town every couple of days. She would buy produce there. As far as we know, that’s all she eats. It may be what she feeds her cat too. As far as we know, she no longer has a way to acquire food.

We all know we’re going to lose Bertilda soon. Some of us are trying to feel somber or even sad about that. Most of us are not succeeding.

The wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly, but she’s in the machinery now. A week ago the Superior Court appointed her conservator. She didn’t show up for the court date. Some of us tried to remind her:

“Remember that white paper you showed me?”

“No.”

“It was a summons to appear in court.”

“That’s bullshit. What paper? What for?”

“Uh. Um, they want to help you pay your bills…”

“Fuck that! I don’t need any help paying my bills. I pay the bills for this whole property! What bullshit!”

“They’re sending a driver to escort you.”

“Well I’m not going!”

We have no reason to believe she remembered that exchange, and the next day when the Paratransit driver arrived, Bertilda didn’t answer. She didn’t even shout her customary verbal-abuse-through-closed-door. She hunkered down in her musty crowded apartment and pretended she wasn’t home. The fact is, she’s always home. Unless she’s taking one of her unlicenced drives in her unregistered uninsured car.

She didn’t go to court but court proceeded anyway. Her caseworker was assigned to be her conservator. Then the conservator communicated a bit to those of us she’d already interviewed. She said the first order of business would be to have Bertilda’s car towed. But three days have now passed, and Bertilda has driven the car twice that we know of. The conservator added that the process of assessing Bertilda’s assets and liabilities and capabilities could take up to three months (!), and that the preferred objective is to arrange matters so she can remain in her apartment (not).

We called Adult Protective Services six months ago. We had to do something about Bertilda’s memory loss and aggressiveness, and we learned that agency is our only resource (unless/until she really hurts someone, and then it’s the police). So the file has been active half a year. There have been two caseworkers and a doctor involved. We have no idea what will be learned in the next three months that hasn’t been acquired in the last six.

What’s next? The car we guess, but then? Will Bertilda be “evaluated” in her place? How will the evaluators get in there? How can they imagine she’ll be able to continue to live there? Here?

The woman is 84. She has never worked well with others. Or lived well with them. In the last five years or so, as her memory has diminished, she has stopped paying bills, laundering, bathing, cooking, using a computer or television or phone. As far as we can tell she sustains her slight body on fruits; her latest power outage went for over a week and there were not any refrigerator consequences. Apparently she doesn’t use her fridge. We know she doesn’t turn her stove on, because we’ve been in her place, now and then, and we’ve seen how the appliance is covered in condiment bottles; she can’t get to the stove burners and there’s no reason to believe she fires the oven, either.

The light situation is bizarre. Every other month PG&E shuts off her power for nonpayment. Until the most recent outage, her neighbor Jerry would bravely enter her apartment, skirt his way past the decades of junk mail/catalogs that are stacked a yard high on her coffee table, call the utility company, and simultaneously use his credit card to bring her account current while protecting the PG&E employee from the torrent of verbal abuse that explodes out of Bertilda’s mouth. Then Jerry has to collect from Bertilda, in the currency she keeps around her place because she no longer trusts her bank.

Well, Bertilda’s Adult Protective Services caseworker, the same individual who is now her conservator, told Jerry to stop paying Bertilda’s bills. It was hard for him to ignore her recent visits to all of us, her confused “Do you have lights?” asked as she faced into our homes where lamps blazed and TVs blared. But he did it. He told her he had lights and he suggested she call PG&E. (It was hard for him because he’s kind but also because he harbors some fantasy that Bertilda will bequeath her place to him, even though she regularly forgets who he is. Then again, Jerry is showing some symptoms of cognitive slippage himself.)

Jerry called the caseworker the next day. He reported that Bertilda has no power. APS sent a young man out to help get the lights back on. None of us intruded but I overheard him asking her if she had lights and offering help when she said she didn’t.

Later on we saw that she still had no power. We learned that she’d refused the help and that her refusal immediately escalated into shrieks and loud accusations that he (they) were going to rob her and take over her apartment.

It continues dark in Bertilda’s home. It seems like she forgets about the lack of electricity during the day and then tries to switch on her lights at sunset, gets no response, and makes her circuit of visits to us all, asking each of us if we have light, not comprehending when we advise her to call PG&E, and explaining, yelling or muttering her belief that one of her enemies is regularly turning off the power to her place. Then she walks away, back to her dark apartment, and goes to bed.

I ask myself, what’s it like to be Bertilda? I can almost understand the periods of confusion and disorientation. What I have trouble imagining is her consistent hostility, her readiness to believe the worst about everyone, her tendency to curse and slap. And those traits are not new. She has no relationships for a reason. Her brother and sister, still alive in Belgium and Germany, must have been relieved to see the last of her when she decided to become a US citizen. No immigration policy protected us from Bertilda.

I know this: she’s a house-proud individual. She’s been in her condo apartment since before it was a condo. She started as a tenant and invested in the TIC arrangement the property had before it was permitted to condo-convert. She’s like a hermit in that apartment, inside twenty-three and a half hours a day, custodian of all the bottles on her stove, all the cleaning supplies under her sink, all the catalogs on her table, the forest of orchids in her front windows, water-damaging the shelves on which they stand.

Soon she will be removed from her home, and as far as she’s concerned the removal will come with no warning and no reprieve. If it weren’t for the fact that the removal will relieve and enhance our whole neighborhood, if it weren’t for the fact that she is a hateful individual who, as far as we can tell, has wasted her existence, I think I’d be feeling for her.

(I looked up Delightful recently. The word origin has nothing to do with light. The dictionary traced it through Middle English to Latin but stopped at de-lacere (to allure). I pulled my old Latin book off the shelf and went deeper. De + lacto = to draw away (from regular business). Ahh)