Sofa saga
So a few days ago, maybe Thursday, someone in my apartment building decided to take his or her couch out to the garbage. Because you’re supposed to call the Department of Sanitation to make a special pickup, the regular trash pickup left it alone. No one even picked it up for their own, which is the only efficient recycling in New York City. So there it sat and got rained on, got trash thrown on it, etc.
Fast forward to very early Sunday morning. Adam and I were coming back from a party and I do believe that nothing had happened to it (other than the elements.) It was a cream colored sofa, and it was hard to miss in front of our building. Later that day, my friend came by to pick up something from us and mentioned that there was a burnt mattress in front of the building. I went downstairs and found that, yes, someone had torched this sofa that had been there for half a week. Either that or carelessly threw a lit cigarette in that direction and the sofa caught on fire. The really horrible part is that someone’s car had been damaged in the fire. It wasn’t too much – the paint on the doors was gone, the windows on that side were gone, and the side mirror was broken. It could have been much worse – it missed the gas tank by maybe 6 inches.
Sunday evening – I come back from a meeting and find that the car is still there but the super moved the burnt husk over to in front of the next car over so he could put the trash in front of our building. I find it funny that the city enforces laws such as “don’t put your trash anywhere but in front of your building between certain hours” but can’t seem to get the hang of “don’t run red lights, thereby almost running over innocent people,” but that’s just me.
Anyhoo, the trash was waiting for pickup this morning when I left for work. The car had been moved, probably to the dealer or a garage. This evening, when I came back, the trash was gone and the remains of this poor sofa were back in front of the building. I don’t know if the super did it, or if the trashmen remembered that it was ours and moved it, in which case, that was very thoughtful of them…
So what happens now? The DOS still won’t pick it up. The super doesn’t know what to do with it. Whoever put it out in the first place certainly didn’t know what to do with it. Our landlord probably doesn’t even know about it, and won’t until he gets fined by the city. The owner of that car can’t press charges since no one knows what happened. Obviously the fire wasn’t extinguished by the fire department (a few blocks from my apartment) or else there would have been some kind of inquiry and the area would have been cleaned up.
Saga to be continued…
January 6th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
a mystery!