Friends in strange places

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?