Corridor Complaints
"Morning Ibu Lisa," I greeted politely and smiled to the housewife who lived next to my unit. I just finished locking my apartment's door when she came out from the elevator on the unit's floor and passed me by. She must have been from the wet market judging from the two big plastic bags full of vegetables she was carrying with both of her hands.
Ibu Lisa, back in 2014 when I first moved in and brought a dozen doughnuts as my courtesy greetings, had a son who got a prejudice towards me who covered my entire hair. The family was Chinese-descent Indonesian. He was unfriendly and rude when I first greeted him on his unit's door that afternoon. But soon when his mom met me and clarified that I wanted to introduce myself as a new tenant who would be their neighbor next door, he changed his attitude to be softer towards me.
This morning, I was about to leave to work. I looked straight a while to my right side. At six o'clock in the morning, all neon lights on the corridor's ceiling were turned off. Neon lamps gave lights to the pitched black corridor at night while in the day, the corridor relied lights from the sun from small windows.
The good thing was the existence of a small permanent window placed on every concrete wall between upper floor and lower floor of fire escape's stairway. It let sunshine to enlighten the inside.
But there was a problem with the fire escape's stairway.
Though sad, I had to admit that not all Jakarta dwellers had the same view over simple standard of cleanliness and neatness in this Kemayoran's reasonably-priced apartment. Still, those dwellers who dirtied the cement slurry emergency stairs beside my unit with cigarette butts, despite many warnings and local government regulation notice on each floor that smoking was totally forbidden inside the building, potato chips leftover crumbles and sometimes candy wrappers surely didn't have the same mind with me.
Furthermore, I believed that they had to upgrade their attitude without delay. Being poor proletarians did not necessarily mean you have rights to turn any place into slummy and dirty. You didn't need a fierce security guard to tell you to keep all places clean and ensure you following the rule, did you? Apologize for being so blunt and sarcastic.
Well, back to this corridor's glass window.
There was an uncovered permanent glass window too besides two passenger elevators that gave abundant lights around my area which I was thankful.
Two permanent glass windows at the every end of the corridor let sunshine in too. But the light from there enlightened only half of the corridor. While the other half part of the corridor had to rely the lights from the window next to elevators. The reason was that the sunlight couldn't be distributed fairly along the corridor because many owners' old belongings were put along the corridor.
The corridor, ideally purposed as fire escapes and should be without exception clear, were obstructed with each unit owner's cardboard, boxes and plastic materials, all smalls and ends which their 36 meter square unit space could no longer accommodate but owners refused to throw them away.
The non existence of balcony on the unit worsened the corridor's look because owners', might be because of a lifestyle habit passed through generations, Do-It-Yourself (DIY) drying poles full of hanging wet clothes ate into much of corridor's space.
Owners, in my personal opinion, should have had washing machine with proper dryer to avoid hanging wet clothes along the corridor or they should assemble poles in the bathroom rather than hanging wet clothes with more water dripping when hanging them either along the corridor or out to the sun from outside their kitchen's window. The sight corroded the beauty of a space, I think, putting up laundry drying poles along the corridor. Many hanging clothes on the window disrupted the view of a building's façade too.
There was once a tenant living in front of my unit, Javanese family perhaps, put her folding drying rack exactly right in front of my door. I couldn't even get into my unit. "This belongs to who?" I asked in an empty corridor and the tenant lady in front of my unit opened her door and said, "I thought no one lives there," while removing her drying rack into her unit's front space.
I was annoyed actually.
Regardless whether no one occupies the unit, you are forbidden to forcefully make use of someone else's space, for whatever the reasons are. This is a simple manner anyone needs to follow. Unless you have asked first, got permission and the owner genuinely doesn't mind at all, no excuses but that the drying rack cannot block someone's unit main door.
I lived in a twenty-floor block public flat where my upper floor's neighbor hung their wet clothes out of their kitchen's window. Not only dripping water but also so many crumbs falling from above my unit to my limited open space where my one AC's outdoor unit sat, from fried salted fish to cigarette stubs. The most terrifying one was the upper unit's owner irresponsibly threw cigarette that still had fire on it! What a horror to find a cigarette that had a potential to burn my AC's outdoor unit and curtain if I was late finding it. Lesser horror but still annoying was one time a t-shirt fell down to that tiny space and I had to get out from my kitchen window to take it and return it back to the owner living upstairs.
Anyway, back again to the corridor's problem.
The flat had additional four meter square outside dedicated to each unit which was marked by small brown ceramics, to make the corridor. Total gross what tenants had was forty meter square but allocated to make their unit as wide as thirty six meter square.
Perhaps of consumerism, they didn't carefully think that having only the basics could serve them more space with less things. Surely what they had seemed nothing for their survival need, let alone made their life easier and more efficient. I even doubted they thought that far.
Once I met a cleaner boy who mopped the corridor's floor at noon, so it suggested there was a regular cleaning. Still, I didn't understand why the floor looked dirty despite daily mopping. A much higher monthly sinking fund fee perhaps could make a difference. However, how about if each responsible owner or tenant had had a higher sense of cleanliness, not relying on cleaner's performance, the corridor's floor would have been cleaner and more fragrant. I once cleaned and mopped my unit's corridor area myself and it was successfully shiny and spotless. Anyone could notice the spotlessness ceramic in my corridor's area among the others.
So what I am trying to say is that the corridor should have been spotless clean and clear of junk and hanging clothes :)
Another corridor's misuse which I complained about, because I couldn't sleep well at night, was that children use it as their playground. "Let the children play and laugh!" I agreed with this but they had to play at the appropriate place of course. It was fine for me and I didn't think it as an issue if they cheerfully played and screamed at a designated area of a playground.
Ibu Lisa, back in 2014 when I first moved in and brought a dozen doughnuts as my courtesy greetings, had a son who got a prejudice towards me who covered my entire hair. The family was Chinese-descent Indonesian. He was unfriendly and rude when I first greeted him on his unit's door that afternoon. But soon when his mom met me and clarified that I wanted to introduce myself as a new tenant who would be their neighbor next door, he changed his attitude to be softer towards me.
This morning, I was about to leave to work. I looked straight a while to my right side. At six o'clock in the morning, all neon lights on the corridor's ceiling were turned off. Neon lamps gave lights to the pitched black corridor at night while in the day, the corridor relied lights from the sun from small windows.
The good thing was the existence of a small permanent window placed on every concrete wall between upper floor and lower floor of fire escape's stairway. It let sunshine to enlighten the inside.
But there was a problem with the fire escape's stairway.
Though sad, I had to admit that not all Jakarta dwellers had the same view over simple standard of cleanliness and neatness in this Kemayoran's reasonably-priced apartment. Still, those dwellers who dirtied the cement slurry emergency stairs beside my unit with cigarette butts, despite many warnings and local government regulation notice on each floor that smoking was totally forbidden inside the building, potato chips leftover crumbles and sometimes candy wrappers surely didn't have the same mind with me.
Furthermore, I believed that they had to upgrade their attitude without delay. Being poor proletarians did not necessarily mean you have rights to turn any place into slummy and dirty. You didn't need a fierce security guard to tell you to keep all places clean and ensure you following the rule, did you? Apologize for being so blunt and sarcastic.
Well, back to this corridor's glass window.
There was an uncovered permanent glass window too besides two passenger elevators that gave abundant lights around my area which I was thankful.
Two permanent glass windows at the every end of the corridor let sunshine in too. But the light from there enlightened only half of the corridor. While the other half part of the corridor had to rely the lights from the window next to elevators. The reason was that the sunlight couldn't be distributed fairly along the corridor because many owners' old belongings were put along the corridor.
The corridor, ideally purposed as fire escapes and should be without exception clear, were obstructed with each unit owner's cardboard, boxes and plastic materials, all smalls and ends which their 36 meter square unit space could no longer accommodate but owners refused to throw them away.
The non existence of balcony on the unit worsened the corridor's look because owners', might be because of a lifestyle habit passed through generations, Do-It-Yourself (DIY) drying poles full of hanging wet clothes ate into much of corridor's space.
Owners, in my personal opinion, should have had washing machine with proper dryer to avoid hanging wet clothes along the corridor or they should assemble poles in the bathroom rather than hanging wet clothes with more water dripping when hanging them either along the corridor or out to the sun from outside their kitchen's window. The sight corroded the beauty of a space, I think, putting up laundry drying poles along the corridor. Many hanging clothes on the window disrupted the view of a building's façade too.
There was once a tenant living in front of my unit, Javanese family perhaps, put her folding drying rack exactly right in front of my door. I couldn't even get into my unit. "This belongs to who?" I asked in an empty corridor and the tenant lady in front of my unit opened her door and said, "I thought no one lives there," while removing her drying rack into her unit's front space.
I was annoyed actually.
Regardless whether no one occupies the unit, you are forbidden to forcefully make use of someone else's space, for whatever the reasons are. This is a simple manner anyone needs to follow. Unless you have asked first, got permission and the owner genuinely doesn't mind at all, no excuses but that the drying rack cannot block someone's unit main door.
I lived in a twenty-floor block public flat where my upper floor's neighbor hung their wet clothes out of their kitchen's window. Not only dripping water but also so many crumbs falling from above my unit to my limited open space where my one AC's outdoor unit sat, from fried salted fish to cigarette stubs. The most terrifying one was the upper unit's owner irresponsibly threw cigarette that still had fire on it! What a horror to find a cigarette that had a potential to burn my AC's outdoor unit and curtain if I was late finding it. Lesser horror but still annoying was one time a t-shirt fell down to that tiny space and I had to get out from my kitchen window to take it and return it back to the owner living upstairs.
Anyway, back again to the corridor's problem.
The flat had additional four meter square outside dedicated to each unit which was marked by small brown ceramics, to make the corridor. Total gross what tenants had was forty meter square but allocated to make their unit as wide as thirty six meter square.
Perhaps of consumerism, they didn't carefully think that having only the basics could serve them more space with less things. Surely what they had seemed nothing for their survival need, let alone made their life easier and more efficient. I even doubted they thought that far.
Once I met a cleaner boy who mopped the corridor's floor at noon, so it suggested there was a regular cleaning. Still, I didn't understand why the floor looked dirty despite daily mopping. A much higher monthly sinking fund fee perhaps could make a difference. However, how about if each responsible owner or tenant had had a higher sense of cleanliness, not relying on cleaner's performance, the corridor's floor would have been cleaner and more fragrant. I once cleaned and mopped my unit's corridor area myself and it was successfully shiny and spotless. Anyone could notice the spotlessness ceramic in my corridor's area among the others.
So what I am trying to say is that the corridor should have been spotless clean and clear of junk and hanging clothes :)
Another corridor's misuse which I complained about, because I couldn't sleep well at night, was that children use it as their playground. "Let the children play and laugh!" I agreed with this but they had to play at the appropriate place of course. It was fine for me and I didn't think it as an issue if they cheerfully played and screamed at a designated area of a playground.
Parents had to understand, and educate their children, that public's corridor in an apartment was not a playground for them to shout, scream, noisily laugh and run wildly back and forth on the hall at night. That was totally hellish bothersome!
There was a playground area on the whole second floor opened for free everyday at the next tower. Parents should ask them to play there because it was built for that purpose. Besides, parents should keep their children at home to play and make noises stay for themselves. Please be concerned of others who badly needed to get rest.
I kept silently complaining in my heart whenever I looked into the corridor and those complaints were just running wild in my head, too eager to slip out from my mouth but I couldn't let it happen.
The corridor complaints landed on this blog. I used the fire escape stairs rather than the passenger elevator to reach the tower's front glass door at the lobby. I hated to wait still and wasted few minutes.
Comments
Post a Comment