Up in Flames

Wow. My neighbor is causing trouble again. This time- it was very dangerous!

The woman who lives below me is not mentally stable. She's very hard to live with... but we're a condo - she's a homeowner like the rest of us, so it's not like we can evict her.

Last night I came home around 10:00 and all my neighbors were standing outside. What's going on? Miss M. They said. I started looking around at the building for noticable damage - the last big incident involved a broken entryway mirror and landscaping bricks through two car windshields.

No. They said. There was a gas leak coming from her unit. They called E*xcel Energy - and the guy with a meter detected 15% gas in the hallway. He said 10% was combustable. In her kitchen, at the source of the leak from her stove, the meter read 40%.

Okay. That's not her fault. Except she was sitting on her couch - drunk off her gourd - smoking a cigarette! How do you not notice that your apartment is full of gas while you have a fire stick in your mouth?!?!? Thanks for blowing up the building Miss M!

Not only that. The guy from E*xcel told her she had to put out the cigarette and she asked Why? After he finally got her to extinguish the bugger, he turned around and she was lighting up another! He took the cigarette right from her mouth!

At least now we can prove that she is a danger to herself AND others. Maybe we can make some progress.

Our laws are very protective of the mentally ill. And that's a good thing. The only problem is - those same laws sometimes make it very difficult to get them help. And to protect the innocent.

What if she'd have blown the place up?!? Holy cow.