Project Blender

August 31, 2010, 03:23:36 PM rbcp - We goan find you, we goan find you, so you can run and tell that, run and tell that homeboy.

[rbcp]

I've had to deal with a real asshole apartment neighbor these past couple years.  I won't get into all the issues I've had with him here yet (those who read my journal might already know) but over the past several months he's been doing something that I really hate.  He bangs on the wall when I'm too noisy.  Our shared wall in this duplex is mostly a kitchen on my side.  On his side I think it's a living room.  The guy who bangs on the wall is named Warren and, as far as I can tell, spends 24 hours a day on his couch, watching TV.  I can hear the TV on most of the time when I'm in the kitchen.  He's 40 - 50 years old and lives there with his sister.  She always seems to be out working and he has never worked as far as I can tell.

The thing is, I'm not a noisy neighbor.  The first time he did this is when I was doing dishes and I closed a cabinet door.  I didn't slam the door, I just closed it like normal.  A bang on the wall is returned to me.  A minute later I close the same cabinet again and hear another bang on the wall.  Several days later this all repeats again.  A few weeks later, I'm using the blender and he starts banging on the wall.  And this becomes a regular thing with us.  Every time I use the blender (milkshakes for the kids) he freaks out.  And this isn't late at night; it's typically somewhere in the 6pm to 8pm range.  One night he really lets loose on the wall, banging the hell out of it, and my kids go to the front door and open it, thinking that someone is banging on the door.  I can see how the vibrations of a blender on the counter connected to their wall would probably be noisy over there.  But damn, it's only for about a minute each time, maybe two times a week.  It's not like he has to get some sleep so he can work in the morning.

I've only retaliated to his banging once.  After being done with the blender I spent about 5 minutes revving it up, over and over.  I could faintly hear him bitching about it through the wall.  I got bored and quit, though.  Normally I'm the type of person that would just go next door and talk to them about the problems.

Anyway, all this leads up to what I'm going to do for the next two weeks.  Last weekend I moved into a new place, but I've still got that old apartment until December 30th.  I've been going over there occasionally to clean things up.  At some point this week I came up with the idea of leaving my blender running on the counter for 3 weeks straight.  But I ditched that idea, thinking it would probably burn the motor out and maybe even start a fire in the process.  And while setting Warren's place on fire sounds hilarious, I just don't think that's a good idea.

Then last night a friend of mine suggested controlling it remotely, or putting the blender on a timer.  What a great idea!  And I just happened to have a timer too.  So I went to the Salvation Army store and found an old blender for $8.00.  Here's a picture I snapped this evening:

For the next two weeks, Warren is going to be treated to approximately 4 hours of blending per day, every single day.  The timer randomizes the starting and ending times by 15 minutes.  So sometimes the blending will last for 45 minutes and sometimes it'll last for 75 minutes.  I spaced it out to turn on throughout the day and at reasonable hours.  Originally I had one of the times set to 4am, but I decided against that for 2 reasons.  One is that he would complain to my landlord and I wouldn't have a very good excuse for blending at 4am.  And two, because Warren is the type of guy that might break into my apartment in a fit of rage to turn the blender off.  I think this is much less likely to happen during the day.

I'm pretty sure that Warren doesn't have cable TV (they don't even have a phone there) and that my blender might be messing up his reception.  If he freaks out this much about 2 minutes of blending per week, just imagine his rage when the blender is running for 4 hours a day!  This has the potential to make him miss EIGHT HILARIOUS SITCOMS PER DAY!

What's everyone think?  Could I do better?  Is it a bad idea?  Will running a blender for an hour at a time burn out the motor?  I'll let everyone know when he breaks into my apartment.  My landlord knows that I'm not living there and I've authorized him to come over any time he wants to show the apartment to people.  It's gonna be funny if halfway through the tour, my blender turns on.  I guess I'll blame my kids if he asks.  "Oh weird, they must have plugged in the blender and the timer that I just happened to have sitting there on the counter, even though I've taken every single other item that I own to the new place..."

[rbcp]

Oh yeah, I'm going to go for some extra style points on my last day there by setting the blender on their front porch before I leave.  A parting gift from me.  I wonder if they have a place to plug it in on their porch...

[gangals]

Speaking of your journal, what's with the password protected post?

[Tachyon]

I second Gangals and this sounds like a really great idea, please keep us apprised!

[s1acker]

That's an awesome idea. I bet that guy is going to go nuts.

[ataxicwolf]

I wish I was as good at being obnoxious as RBCP is 

Well done, I really like the idea.

[MIB]

I think you should leave the blender as a farewell gift. You should also consider this: once a week send him blender related stuff.

-A new blender
-A used blender
-Various blender parts (one part each week to keep this revenge scam going)
-Blender instruction manuals
-Sales ads from different stores advertising any blenders on sale
-Take a picture of blender and have it printed on some greeting cards. Mail one for each holiday of the year. Even Mother's Day.
-Send him a subscription to Blender magazine. It doesn't have any to do with the kitchen appliance, but it will be a neat trick anyway.


Other things:

-Call him and say blender over and over again until get gets pissed and hangs up.
-Find a company that sells industrial size blenders to restaurants. Call them at night to insure you will get a voice mail and tell the salesman you are interested in purchasing 50 blenders for the restaurants you are going to be opening. Give them Warren's phone number.

I think it will be hilarious if you were to use the old 3-way calling trick and connect Warren and Dino. Let them wonder who called who.

Warren: I had this neighbor who left a blender running for hours at a time.
Dino: If you think that's bad, way back in '95 when I had a cordless phone...

That's all I have.
Happy Revenge!!!

MIB

Edit to add: In the book Merry Gentlemen and One Lady It tells about Hugh Troy who did something similar to a lady who call him all the time. She had the wrong number but still called his phone. His scheme was sending her turkey related items including turkey recipes Thanksgiving cards, etc. He even sent her travel information to plan a vacation to Turkey.

[z3wb]

A Mr. Brad Carter was beaten to within an inch of his life last night by an enraged neighbor. The neighbor claims that he was intentionally running his blender to annoy him. While Carter admits that this is true, he claims he had never had it set above mix. The neighbor claims he has had it up to whip and puree several times.

[Zazen]

Other things:

-Call him and say blender over and over again until get gets pissed and hangs up.
-Find a company that sells industrial size blenders to restaurants. Call them at night to insure you will get a voice mail and tell the salesman you are interested in purchasing 50 blenders for the restaurants you are going to be opening. Give them Warren's phone number.

I think it will be hilarious if you were to use the old 3-way calling trick and connect Warren and Dino. Let them wonder who called who.

Warren: I had this neighbor who left a blender running for hours at a time.
Dino: If you think that's bad, way back in '95 when I had a cordless phone...

rbcp said this guy doesn't have a phone.

I think it'd be funnier to call a delivering fast food place to send him a lot of milkshakes. But really, the blender-on-a-timer is already pretty damn hilarious all by itself.

[rbcp]

Good ideas, MIB.  But yeah, the phone-related ideas are no good for this guy. 

I was at the old apartment today and yesterday, cleaning, and there was no sign of Warren.  Not a sound from next door, even as I was doing some repair-related hammering on his wall.  Last week I ranted to the land lord about all of the Warren shit.  He was pissed to find out that Warren was even living there.  I guess he's told him before that he's not allowed to live there.  It's supposed to be just Warren's sister and Warren's dad.  So I may have gotten him kicked out.  Which makes my hilarious blender idea completely useless.  I hope it at least makes Warren's sister and father hate him a little more. 

My Warren is just gone for the weekend and will be back on Monday.  I'd like to think that he was so annoyed with the blending that he left.  But I suppose that's pretty unlikely.  As I left the apartment this evening I noticed that the only light on was the light in Warren's dad's room.  If I don't see any signs of Warren soon, I'm going to pull the plug on my blender idea.

[rbcp]

I'm sad to say that Project Blender was a complete failure.  Warren was never there during the time the blender was on.  The good news is that this is because Warren was kicked out several days early as a result of my bitching about him to the landlord.  He told me all about it yesterday.  So while I still feel like I got a little revenge on him by getting him thrown out, that's not nearly as hilarious as the blender thing would have been.  My revenge on Warren isn't done yet, though.  I still have plans for him.

[jenn]

Take the blender apart and send him the parts. I'm sure this would confuse him. Send the container top first, the innards next, the buttons next to last, and the plate with the settings printed on it and the container last.

[sknOOb]

Find out where he moved to and throw the blender through his  front window at 3am........just kidding.

I would at the very least call him and put the phone next to the blender a couple of times a night just to piss him off.

[Tenorclefninja]

I would find out where he lives now and place various blender parts around the home since B&E is not a good idea... under the front door mat, mailbox, gutters, in potted plants, in the lawn, etc.
 
Great idea with the timer btw. Too bad he wasn't there :-(

[MelloKira]

Just wondering, is this the guy who kept stealing all your stuff?