Unlocked: Two Weeks Without Privacy

I went quiet for a while—I simply couldn’t write. One incident in the building where I live knocked me completely off balance.

By nature, I don’t like people in my space. I love being alone, and my home has to be a safe place no one can enter without my consent. Yet for the second week in a row I’ve had to accept that people can just unlock my door and walk in.

Let me start from the beginning. Two weeks ago there was a massive water leak in the building. Not a drip—an actual torrent. It was a Saturday evening. I was at home, the balcony door closed, when I heard a strange noise. My first thought was rain, which made no sense. Rain in Los Angeles in the summer? Impossible. I stepped onto the balcony, felt mist hitting my face, and looked over: on the neighboring balcony water was gushing the full width like someone had tipped a bucket, the pressure so strong it was almost a wall of water. I looked the other way—nothing. It was clear this wasn’t rain. Something had burst.

Soon water began tracing down one of my walls and pooling on the floor. I had to work that night, and when I left I was afraid it would get worse. It didn’t—by the time I came back the wall was dry, just a little water left on the floor.

On Sunday, everyone was notified that for the next two weeks workers would have the right to enter apartments—without our consent and without us being present. For me, that’s a personal hell. On Monday it began: they came, checked the moisture in the walls, and installed equipment to dry the apartment. The noise was nonstop, 24/7. It lasted from Monday through the Thursday of the following week. They cut holes in the walls and opened a section of the ceiling so things would dry faster. My place turned into a complete mess.

The contractors they hired didn’t speak English at all; I couldn’t get anything across. They came in like it was their own home—once they didn’t knock or ring, just started opening the door; another time they rang and, in the same second, began unlocking it. No respect whatsoever.

Because of the constant noise my blood pressure spiked and I had a constant headache. The dry air in the apartment triggered breathing problems; I had to use a nasal spray all the time, more often than the instructions allow—without it I simply couldn’t breathe. I was on edge because there were strangers in my home, because of the chaos around me, and because I had no idea how long it would last. After the workers left, I had breakdowns: I would just lie there and cry—cry because there was nothing I could do. It was a horrible stress; I couldn’t do anything.

I also had brief memory glitches from the stress. One example: a few packages were delivered. I opened the first, put everything away, opened the second, put that away too—then came back to the boxes, saw two empty packages, and couldn’t remember what had been in the second one. Not even a minute had passed. I actually wondered if it had been empty—which was pretty unlikely. A couple of minutes later I remembered. Another time, I mixed up right and left. Right and left—something I’d never imagined myself confusing. In short, the stress was brutal.

I installed cameras inside because I no longer feel safe here. And I realized I will never feel 100% safe in any rental, because I’m not the only one with access to my apartment. That pushed me even more toward buying a place of my own. A house, specifically—because even in your own condo you still have to obey the building’s rules, and I need freedom. Here, I feel those rules pressing down on me—hard.