The previous tenant

This past weekend, we finally discovered that there is another laundry room on our side of the building (don't get me started on our laundry woes -- I'll have to expound on them some other time). When the doorman was showing it to us, it was fascinating to see rows of doors that once were (maybe still are) apartments but are now considered illegal because they are in the basement. The doors were right next to each other, with a little mailbox next to each one, so I can't imagine there being much room inside each. Back when the rooms/apts were occupied, it must've been like tenement living, complete with the bathroom down the hall. Even more interesting was some of the gossip/history that the doorman, and later the super too, dished out.

SOME HISTORY
We bought the apartment from a recently widowed woman who had somewhat of an eccentric taste, and you could tell she was very particular about lots of things. She was also high-strung and extremely talkative and she always had nothing but praises for both the super and the doorman. However, they apparently disliked her and her husband b/c they were "crazy." Both the super and the doorman said they would be annoyed by her and were so happy when she moved out. We knew she was particular, but I didn't know that she threw a fit when there was a minor leak in the kitchen and some of her cabinets got wet -- the management company ended up giving her $20,000 to fix everything. She also gave the super her new, expensive microwave/convection oven b/c it was the wrong color.

But the doorman and super weren't the only people that were annoyed by her. The woman was in a rush to sell so that she could move elsewhere. We were surprised that once our offer was accepted we had the board interview within a few days. Normally it takes weeks, even months, but she so annoyed the management company (I think she called them everyday) that everything moved along very quickly.

HER LIES
The woman told us numerous times that her strong and healthy husband died suddenly from cancer that had already metastatized throughout his body; doctors discovered it one day when his blood tests came back suspicious but they had no clue otherwise. She didn't mention that he used to smoke packs of cigarettes in one day. They also had the vice of tipping back the bottle one too many times, as the super would find jugs and bottles of wine and liquor in the recyclables bin.

I was also under the impression that she and her husband were very much in love (she recalled stories of how they met back in high school and she broke down crying at the closing when she saw his signature) however they were also on the verge of divorce before he suddenly died. The super told us the story of how her husband once went crazy looking for her but he didn't have the keys to the apartment so he wanted the super to break down the door. Instead, the super climbed onto the fire escape and saw her inside the apartment, going about her business -- she was mad at her husband for something and had locked him out. I also found it a bit odd that as a grandmother, she never once mentioned her granddaughter. She did seem quite fond of her only daughter though. Turns out that her daughter blamed her for her father's death.

It's so fascinating to see the other side of things, another perspective, how things are never as they seem. But in this case, it's also sad. I feel sorry for this woman, who built up defense mechanisms (like denial) b/c everyone secretly (maybe not all so secretly) dislikes her. And everyone dislikes her probably b/c she is anal retentive about everything. I want to know what happened that was so bad in her marriage that they would want a divorce after growing old together (he was a lawyer, she worked from home -- was there an affair going on somewhere? Was it mutual -- she still seemed to love him?) I want to know what happened with her daughter that they would practically hate each other. And in her moving to another state, was it just grief that she was running from? Things are never as they seem. What other stories are people hiding?