What’s a neighbor to do? Bertilda is fast losing it, and she has no one.
From what I hear, she’s always been a bitch. Some folks on our block have known her for decades, and “borderline personality disorder” is the kindest gossip-diagnosis I’ve heard.
She was born in Germany, and she’s more-so than any caricature of a Teutonic rule-enforcer. She’s only about five foot four, thin as a rail, but she frightens children, dogs, and possibly authorities too.
We’re not sure how old she is. Anne says she had Bertilda down in her place the summer before last, dealing with shared expenses, when the woman announced it was her birthday. Anne doesn’t want to be Bertilda’s friend any more than the rest of us, but of course she acted interested. The way she describes the scene, she cocked her head and looked inquiringly at Bertilda. Who then cast her eyes upward before meeting Anne’s, and uttered, “I think I’m 83 now.”
“Wow,” Anne said then. “That’s a great age” (she’d gotten that from her old vet, right before they put her elderly retriever down, and she’d always liked the way it made her consider the double meaning of the word). Anne says she bit her own tongue to stop herself from offering a meal or at least a celebratory drink, but extending a Bertilda visit is the last thing any of us wants to do.
As far as the neighborhood remembers, Bertilda has always been at best disruptive. Usually she takes the role of local crone. She’s the weird old lady who lurks at her window and yells at anyone who lingers on the sidewalk or approaches the door. She seems to think her “Who are you? What do you want?” is normal welcoming language. She’s always surprised at the coolness she encounters and never ascribes any of it to her own acts.
Around here, everyone has become accustomed to her erratic behavior. None of the neighbors is surprised when we experience a relatively sweet encounter with her and then, minutes later, abuse. Jerry’s phrase for her angry outbursts is “thermonuclear” and he’s never had to explain that to anyone who’s met her. We’ve all learned to protect tradesmen from Bertilda; she’s around and she will interrogate/converse with anyone working near the property. She won’t hesitate to tell them where to park, ask them to do little jobs for her while they’re at whatever they’re doing, berate them for work methods or materials of which she doesn’t approve.
My first Bertilda episode came about when I replaced the deck between my house and hers. I had to choose between real wood and trex. I had samples of both around for about a week. I even chatted with Bertilda about the materials. She didn’t express an opinion then. I decided on wood. After the job was done there was a bit of sawdust left scattered on the surrounding vegetation. I found her out there with a big bag of grass seed. She was hurling handfuls of seed where only birds would benefit, grumbling and grousing. I said “Hi. What’s up?” She glared at me and started in about how irresponsible it was of me to choose plastic instead of wood, how the plastic dust would kill the (non-indigenous, not drought-tolerant) lawn, how only she cared enough to sow new seed and repair my (fucking selfish) devastation.
What’s a neighbor to do?
For a long time, tolerate her and try to find her amusing. Consider her presence part of the richness of life here. But she is degenerating rapidly now, and those of us around her are getting concerned about her ability to care for herself, about her driving, about the safety of the house she shares with Anne and Jerry.
Half a year ago, she knocked on Jerry’s door and asked if he had power. But hers was the only place in the dark. Jerry called PG&E and learned Bertilda hadn’t paid her bill in six months. He got her power back on. Bertilda expressed gratitude toward Jerry and enmity toward PG&E (those assholes).
Last week it happened again. She hadn’t resumed paying her bill, so after another half year PG&E again pulled her plug.
But that’s not all. Her phone is out of order. Back when it worked, she responded to a scam contest call, and experienced the emptying of her bank account. She stormed into the bank and ranted so loudly that her account was restored with minimal paperwork on her part. But the bank reported the incident and someone from the Elder (Fraud) Abuse unit came to interview Bertilda. She tore the poor woman a new one, through her closed front door.
Since then, Bertilda doesn’t trust her bank. The distrust appears owed more to the visit than to the fraud. She doesn’t use her checking account. She has a thick wad of hundred dollar bills in her apartment, and she offers it to anyone who knocks on her door and tells her she owes money.
More and more often lately, she has hours when she forgets how to operate the laundry machines, when she doesn’t understand what time of day or year it is. She often speaks of enemies who interfere with her. When her car disappeared from the driveway, she told me and Anne that it was stolen. She added that the same enemies had been moving the car regularly: “I park it in the driveway every night, and each morning it’s been moved onto the street, and I have to move it back.” In fact, Bertilda seems to drive it about twice a week. When she isn’t in it, it’s in the driveway. Until it disappeared.
None of us thought it was stolen. All of us wondered why she was still driving and how the car picked up the long scrapes along both sides. Gouges like extreme keying (with a refrigerator). A few of us figured it was in a repair shop somewhere.
Anne made a few calls and took Bertilda to the Toyota dealer. They found her car in the back of the lot. The car wouldn’t start and there was no work order associated with it. Only a slip of paper with Bertilda’s name and street address, in her handwriting. In Anne’s presence she signed a work order. She expressed normal gratitude to Anne when they got home. And an hour later was knocking on Anne’s door, asking if Anne knew who had stolen her car.
I agreed with Anne that Bertilda shouldn’t be driving. So did Jerry. We even discussed calling DMV about her, but none of us wanted to get into that phone queue. And we all wondered where you draw the line. Especially after Anne called the Toyota people, intending to explain the situation and buy more time for the car to stay in their lot, only to be told that some policeman gave Bertilda a ride to the Toyota lot and left her as soon as he was satisfied that her car was there.
That’s when I did some googling. Anne asked for help and we both knew the police wouldn’t do anything until Bertilda harmed herself or someone else.
The first thing I learned is we’re not alone. Google “what do I do about my mentally ill neighbor?” and you discover that your own situation could be way worse. The boomer cohort is aging, our prime polluted by our culture’s chemicals and other scientific intrusions as well as by black market drugs, and there are scads of examples of unfit neighbors.
The second thing I learned is to insist on police help or to call Adult Protective Services. Many commentators advise you to demand police action, but we already knew that wouldn’t work. I called the APS number.
And was shocked to encounter sensible voicemail! The office (which seemed to prefer to be called the Department of Adult and Aging Services) was closed for the weekend, but the recorded message made it clear that APS is the place to call. The other options aren’t suitable: the public guardian only acts under a court order, the public administrator steps in after death, and the ombudsman is for abuse in assisted living arrangements.
I shared my research with Anne. We decided that she’d call APS on Monday. We nominated her because she’s closer (physically) to Bertilda and because her special ed job has her more in the social services arena than my business consulting.
On Monday evening we got together to discuss the situation. We invited Jerry to join us; he’s the third member of their HOA and, like Anne, he interacts with Bertilda more than me and the other neighbors. In fact, Jerry is the kindest of us with her. He’s a sweet soul with everyone, but he’s the Samaritan who has suffered her tantrums and blows most often (she’s been known to hit him with a stick), who calls utilities on her behalf and, shielding the answerer from Bertilda’s curses, gets her power back on, who has given her rides to the market and then paid for the groceries when it turns out she forgot to bring her cash.
Anne poured out glasses of wine and reported on her conversation with the APS intake person. Jerry and I sat across from her and listened. He had a pad of lined yellow paper on his lap and took notes while we spoke. That seemed odd to me, but Anne and I have both noticed that he seems to be forgetting things lately. Small unimportant conversations, but enough that we’ve commented about it to each other. Like when he joked about disabling Bertilda’s car. This was right after it returned from the Toyota dealer. Even though the police had assisted, we didn’t think Bertilda should drive. Jerry joked about removing a spark plug or adding something to the gas tank. A day later, when I referred to his car-disabling joke, he gave me a weak grin and blank eyes.
Jerry’s only about 45. He’s had a rough life, abandoned at birth and shuffled into several foster care situations, burdened with early cataracts and the threat of glaucoma, suffering from chronic eczema that is exacerbated by his outdoor job. It’s beyond unfair to add memory loss to the list, but he is showing signs lately of common confusion.
Anne suggested that both of us call APS. She said her conversation went well, but because she’s not related to Bertilda, from then on the situation would be between APS and Bertilda, and no one was going to keep Anne in the loop. That made sense to us; Bertilda has rights to confidentiality. But Anne got the impression that the file would be thicker and the situation more likely to demand action if more of us called. She asked each of us to try the number. She advised us to call early and avoid the hold system.
So we did. I called APS the next morning right after they opened, and Jerry got through a little later. We reported to one another by email.
My call went well. I could tell they had a file on her when they didn’t request the full address. I asked if I was calling the right place. Yes, was the answer: APS is the only service for a friendless creature like Bertilda. I said other neighbors were concerned and wondered if it would help if those others called. No, was the answer to that one; the file is open and it will be acted upon if the supervisor decides so. I believed the first answer but not the second. And that belief was supported when I got a phone message from a social worked a few days later. He recorded a voicemail message for me and said he’d visited Bertilda some months ago, but now that APS was getting a number of calls, he wanted to reopen the investigation.
But before that message, Jerry reported two things. He said his call to APS went fine but it made him feel bad. He wondered on email if we should report our acts to Bertilda as some sort of warning. Anne and I goggled at that. What purpose could such a warning possibly serve?
Then Jerry told us he overheard a crazed conversation through Bertilda’s door. She was on the phone (the phone? When did that start working again?) screaming at someone he figured was a social worker. He said he’d never heard her so heated or foulmouthed before. And he added that the reason he’s being so nice to Bertilda is he’s hoping she will leave her condo to him when she dies. As far as Anne and I can determine, he was not joking.
I haven’t spoken to the assigned APS social worker yet. He left me a message and I returned his call (twice), but it’s been three days and he hasn’t tried my number again.
Last night Bertilda knocked on my front door. She was holding a big net bag of clementina oranges that had seen better days. She offered me fruit. I declined. I thanked her and said I had a mass of citrus myself. She looked around for someone else to receive her gift of rotting produce. She pointed toward her own house and appeared confused.
“Anne’s not home yet,” I said when her eyes were aimed downstairs. She looked toward Jerry’s garage apartment and her face asked a question. “I think Jerry’s home,” I said toward his lighted place. It was obvious to me that she wasn’t recalling who Jerry is or how near to her own front door his entrance sits.
What’s a neighbor to do?
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