The lease said a number of things that D. Hartley might find interesting.
It said that tenants were responsible for ensuring that their use of the property did not cause nuisance, damage, or disturbance to neighboring tenants. It said that balconies were classified as part of the private dwelling space and that disposal of waste via balcony rail was explicitly prohibited — not in those exact words, but in clear enough language that any reasonable reading arrived there. It said that damage caused to neighboring property through tenant negligence was the financial responsibility of the tenant at fault.
It also said that complaints could be submitted to the building management company in writing and that three documented complaints about the same issue in a ninety-day period triggered a formal review process.
I did not know this last part off the top of my head.
I looked it up.
Then I looked up the management company’s formal complaint submission process, which was not advertised prominently but was available on their website if you navigated to the right section, which I did.
Then I did one more thing.
I went back through eleven months of my phone’s camera roll.
I had, without any particular plan, taken photographs of several of the tea bags when they landed. Not all of them — I had not been thinking systematically in those early weeks. But I had photographed the towel. I had photographed the cushion cover. I had photographed the bag that had come over on the morning after the first conversation, because something in me had registered, even then, that documentation was wise.
Seven photographs total.
I wrote down the dates and times I remembered for the ones I hadn’t photographed, and I was careful to note only what I was certain of and not what I was reconstructing from general impression. Then I wrote a letter.
The letter was three pages long.
It was precise, chronological, and entirely without emotional language. It described the incidents. It referenced the relevant lease clauses. It attached the photographic evidence. It noted that I had attempted to resolve the matter directly on two occasions and had been met, on the second occasion, with a response that made direct resolution clearly non-viable.
It was, if I say so myself, an excellent letter. The kind of letter that requires no shouting because the information does the work.I submitted it to the management company’s formal complaint portal at half past nine on a Tuesday evening.
