The days are getting cooler now and the leaves are on the street. My second summer of being “mobbed” in my legal home in northeast Seattle is turning into the second autumn of my mobbing and like so many mornings as of late, the mobbers woke me before dawn.

Move on!

We don’t care if you’re quiet as a church mouse. We’re going to get you out!

No matter how much you scream and shout, we’re going to get you out!

You’re fat, ugly, and old. And too bold!

Wait one. Allow me to note, for City of Seattle authorities in addition to the FBI who I hope are already investigating this matter, the presence of two descriptors that generally are considered indicators of hate crimes by the City of Seattle: Fat and old. These are, of course, the stereotyped insults that are supposed to make a middle-aged woman turn and run. If I were a man, they’d tell me that I couldn’t get it up, couldn’t get girls, or was a failure because I didn’t drive a BMW. Such is the mind of a real estate mercenary.

Okay then, back to bed. Don’t be shy. It’s been a long time since I slept alone, probably longer than I know.

I push the pillow away from my ear. Sometimes this deadens the sound of the harassment. For a while I was using silicone putty earplugs and deeply inserting them into the ear canal gave me nights of sleep. They got around it.

“If we can’t get you one way, we’ll get you another. We’re stuck like glue! We’ll find a way to shoot it in to you.”

And they do, at least, they try to. Maybe not as effectively as before, but there seems to be increasing concern by those in the know in my neighborhood. A certain builder who apparently once told my landlord that I was “just a renter” keeps coming by the house I’ve been assured he won’t put up for sale until I go, and this week some of those who were likely instrumental in giving me the gift of mobbing have conveniently gone away, leaving me to the mobbers.

And the owners of the mobbing houses seem to have “staffed up,” shall we say. The owners and their friends who live in the houses seem to have changed cars or hide their personal vehicles in their garages. All the better to make it appear as though you’re not at home at all. What? A problem between the neighbor and your “guests”? Mon dieu! The harassment intensifies. After all, the “mobbing” has been going on for more than sixteen months and the nasty people who probably arranged it have deals to make, houses to flip or to build, and profits to net.

I move the pillow away from my ear, then I try to find a comfortable position on my back. But I’m a side sleeper and, sooner or later, I end up with an ear against the pillow. I try two earplugs but it contains the harassment when my ear is pressed to the pillow so I discard one, and move it from ear to ear. My evasions are accommodated and though the harassment is muffled I cannot quiet it enough to sleep. I sit up in bed and cover the crack between the sound board and the window glass with a poofy pillow in hopes of blunting any sound that the board doesn’t absorb. Finally I get up and go to sleep on the couch in the living room, an area where fewer of their windows overlook my own, an area not so easy to access over the back fence. My roommate’s cat, who has been exiled to the upper story with me to escape her owner’s dogs, welcomes me.

They wait for me to settle in.

“Get out!”

You’ve heard of victimless crimes. This is not one of those.

♣

When I get around to writing part 2 of Criminal harassment and the parametric speaker, I’ll tell you about one of the dirty tricks mobbers probably use to make it difficult for the criminally harassed to make successful reports to the police.

This is the parametric or directional speaker.