Me and hubby are both retired. He is 63 and retired through ill health and I'm 70 next month and retired when I was nearly 65. We live in an apartment complex of 66 flats with 8 to 9 flats in each block. There are 2 flats on the ground floor one empty and one just a holiday home. On the first floor are 3 flats - a retired lady in two of them and a man and his son in the other. On the second floor which is our floor is a retired lady on one side of us and a retired couple on the other. The lady on the floor below and as it happens the flat below us, keeps herself to herself. She's 74 years old and has lived here 11 years. Up till last week I could count on one hand the number of times I've spoken to her but that's all changed and she's driving me up the wall.
She knocked on my door the other day to tell me that her oil fired radiator has broken and would it be possible to try and get her another. (She doesn't have a landline/mobile or internet.) I was up and down stairs and on knocking on her door to tell her I'd ordered it was bombarded with a plethora of bits of paper asking for help. 1. Will I phone a local shop to see if the toilet seat she'd ordered had come in. 2. Will I phone a care company to ask them to come tomorrow to get some shopping. 3. Will I phone BT to help her get a landline no Internet. So I spent Friday phoning people up and up and down stairs. I ended up with another request to ask if I could also get her some shopping. I said to hubby we can't carry all this as well as our own so we went out yesterday and came back with 3 bags of very heavy items. I told her she would have to buy a phone for when BT comes next week so she asked if I would help her with that. I ordered a simple phone and took it down earlier and set it up ready for BT. Plugged it into phone socket and mains and explained she must put the handset back on it's base when she finished a call to recharge it. I felt like banging my head against the wall as I had to keep telling her she doesn't need to change the batteries as it charges itself. She then moaned about it using electricity but I told her it was minimal the amount it used. She said she would unplug till the man came but I said plug it back in on Sunday so it will be fully charged for when he came. She has hurt her hip and constantly moaning about the damp in her flat (none in ours) but she has all her windows shut, curtains shut and bags of crap piled everywhere and the flat stinks. I don't want to be rude to her but I can't cope with all this. She gave me a quilt for helping her but I had to throw it away because it smelt that bad.
How would anyone deal with this. Hubby says we'll have to nip it in the bud or we will get lumbered.
Any advice welcome. Thanks.
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