It was Saturday
morning and we were surprised to have someone ringing the door bell. Waiting to
be let in were two men in yellow jackets, the sort used by road workers to make
them conspicuous, holding a massive can and sprayer.
“From the
city,” they said, “part of the insecticide program.” They showed us a letter
announcing them as a “service Flit”. It brought back memories of those Flit
sprayers we used to have, with the little pump and circular can for the liquid.
“We are not
paying,” we said, “we didn’t ask for it.”
“No, no,”
they said, “it is free.”
So we let
them in, and they sprayed all round the house. When they had finished, about
ten minutes later, one of them said:
“I remember
you, you lived at the Residence Equateur, and you had two dogs”. He remembered
my name as well.
It was
extraordinary, and we had, indeed, had the same people spraying our previous
place. Having thus lowered our guard he asked for N’s phone number, which she
gave him.
The next
morning, Sunday, we had another visit. The security guard had brought them up,
and they were standing there expectantly, in the same gear with the same
spraying equipment. BUT, it was a different pair. This made us feel
uncomfortable, but we let them in.
“Why are
you here?” we asked, “we had it done yesterday.”
“That’s
because we have to do a follow up,” they said, and then they walked quickly
into the bedrooms and sprayed voluminous quantities over the floors.
It took a
while for us to make our point.
“That’s
enough,” we said, “we don’t need any more. And we are not paying,” we added, ”we
were told yesterday it is free.”
They left,
as suddenly as they had arrived.
We looked
at each other.
“How did
this happen? How did we let them in?”
We both had
the same feeling. They were bad people. We quickly did a check in the bedrooms
they had sprayed. It looked as though nothing was missing . . . but you never
know.
We sat
down, the sinking feeling in our stomachs getting stronger by the minute.
Something had to be done.
The next
day, I took the letter, allegedly from the city, to the office and asked our friendly administrator
to call the landlord and the security service to check whether these people
were legitimate, and what the rules were about letting such people into the
property. She wrote a stiff email in support of her phone call.
Meanwhile
the friendly one had been phoning. Twelve times, just on Monday morning. He
wouldn’t take no for an answer, and now seemed to be expecting some payment.
The
landlords said they had not requested the service, and the security service
said that such people should not have been let in without asking us first.
Two
days later, they turned up at the gate again. The security guard said they
couldn’t come it, whereupon they started getting angry and demanding to be
allowed in. The security guard obviously had a secret button, and the rapid
response team arrived within minutes to support him. They were followed by the
police. When they saw the police they started to run away, but they were
followed and caught.
What
happened next we don’t know, but now we have another worry. Will they try and
get revenge?
Who
knows?
