They're Watching Me

A first person account on what it's like living under surveillance

Hangzhou, China: a real-life, tech-enabled police state where Big Brother monitors its citizens' every move. Where a jaywalker might be deemed "untrustworthy" and be prohibited from buying plane tickets. Where someone who plays music too loudly might be denied a loan. Or where someone who honks in traffic might be fired from their job.

Most people can't imagine living in an environment like that.

But I can.

“Alex,” said Bernadette, our HOA’s best asset against oppositionists, “is someone moving into your apartment right now?” 

It was 12pm on a Sunday, and Ben had decided to bring a couch and a couple of boxes over to Vernazza, my Miami apartment. There was no moving van outside.  No dolly or U-Haul boxes littering the hallway. No double-parked cars nor elevators commandeered for exclusive use.

And yet, Bernadette Berry, who does not even live in our building, somehow had a hunch that something was awry.

“Oh. Um,” I began, caught off-guard, “my boyfriend was just giving me some furniture.”

“Is he moving in?”

“No. Well. Yes, but not right now. He’ll be moving in in a few weeks…” I said, my voice shaking.

“Not without the HOA’s approval, he won’t be.”

“Oh, um,” I said, staring at Ben who was taking pieces of his ugly art and holding it up to my clean walls. He noticed the concerned look on my face. “What is it?” he whispered.

“Well,” I said to Bernadette, “what do you need me to do to get him approved?”

She let out a sigh as if listening to me made her tired. “Alex, it’s in the bylaws that you signed when you moved in.”

“Oh, I—”

“First, I need a note from your landlord saying that she’s okay with your partner becoming a co-habitant. Second, I need your partner to fill out a full application and pay the $150 application fee, AND include references which we may or may not be calling. And then, if and only if the HOA would like to interview him, which again, is not guaranteed, he’ll need to have a meeting with a current owner of another unit in the building, not a resident, but an owner, who will need to approve him.”

I relaxed my stomach. I’ve been working on that. Remaining calm, etc. “Okay. That all sounds doable.” I tried changing my tone. “Sorry…it’s just been crazy. He’s been on a super rough shift at the hospital and—”

“—and that’s great, Alex. Send me that note from your landlord when you get a chance. And again, just reiterating, your partner is not to move in until you receive our approval. In writing.”

“Okay, that’s-”

“-have a nice day.”

I often wonder how much Bernadette gets paid. I’ve lived at Vernazza, a 4-story, 25-unit condo building with no amenities, besides its free third-reich year-round larp event, for two and a half years and I’ve come to believe that throughout my entire life, Bernadette is the most diligent person I’ve ever met.

I don't know how she does it. Music too loud after 10pm? Email in your inbox the next morning. Failure to break down your package? Email the same day. Bicycle unregistered? Booted within the hour.

“You saw the notice about the guy in 208?” I once asked Ben as he walked in after a long day at work.

“Of course, I saw it,” he said. “That’s crazy that they’re allowed to do that. It must be illegal.” He said, referring to the flyer.

It read: The building gets fined when you put recyclables in the trash! Please be more careful!

The message itself was kosher. But below the message was a picture of Resident 208 standing by our dumpster. 

Bernadette, or one of her cronies, had gone through our building’s security footage and found a clip of the guy from 208 tossing a pizza box into the garbage. The footage was then paused, screenshot, printed out, and then taped around our elevators and stairwells.

“Someone’s gonna come after her one day,” I said to Ben. “I’m convinced.”

I was complaining about this to one of my friends, Molly Turner, who told me that I should be grateful that there’s someone who cares about the building, and as she says this I grow suspicious, and wonder if Molly, one of my best friends, is actually a plant, paid to further the HOA’s cause. 

“Remember how bad that duplex situation was?” Molly asked me, referring to a duplex we once shared.

Once, we were watching TV and noticed our downstairs neighbor Tara, arguing with someone, and they were loud so we turned up the TV.  A few hours later, Tara asked us if we heard them yelling, to which we responded “Yes, but it wasn’t a big deal,” to which Tara replied that “it was a big deal because that meth-y homeless lady was trying to steal my Amazon package,” and this concerned Molly and me because we were waiting on a new set of silicon turquoise spatulas.

“Ugh, maybe you’re right,” I said to Molly on the phone, “maybe it’s better this way.” And then I sat at my dining room table, staring at my front door, slowly believing that Bernadette’s propaganda had finally started to work.

It happened over a set of weeks, and I began to notice that I began to notice.

A group of 16-year-olds I didn’t recognize stumble out of 201 — potentially Airbnb-ing, which, according to the bylaws, is not allowed. A new-sounding, high-pitched bark coming from 307 — perhaps an unapproved dog. Or a home-sweet-home doormat outside of 108, violating line 14 which clearly says “no doormats, potted plants, or other decor paraphernalia may occupy the shared hallways.”

And then this morning, I was walking through our downstairs lobby and noticed David Pearson, one of the owners, not residents, but owners, pacing along the southern wall. He was searching for something. My own eyes made their way to the glass table at the center of the lobby, atop which usually stands a 20” Cupid statue made of white plaster resembling something you’d find at a flea market for $9.75.

Today, however, the Cupid statue’s head was missing. 

I gasped.

“I know,” said David from the far corner of the room as he lifted up couch cushions and dug through trash cans searching for the decapitated head. “It’s terrible.”

“Who would do such a-”

“-some drunk girls,” he responded. “At least that’s what it looked like on the video. I’m still working on who they are and who they were visiting.”

“Terrible. Such terrible people,” I said, distraught. “And the fact that they’re friends with someone here...”

“I know,” David Pearson replied. “We’ve gotta get to the bottom of this, Alex. At first, it’s just a statue’s head, but then…well…these things are a slippery slope.”

I nodded.

Anyway, that was this morning. 

Now, Ben and I sit at the dinner table.

“Can you believe it?” I ask him.

He picks up his plate as he walks to the kitchen. “It’s not a big deal,” he says.

“What do you mean? It’s literally been in this building for years. People love that statue. And now it’s destroyed. Don’t you think that’s horrible?” I say, following him to the sink.

“No,” he says, “It’s just a dumb statue.”

How dare he. Something’s off about him, I think to myself, as he walks to the bathroom to brush his teeth. 

Over the past few weeks, he’s been less grateful than he should be about Vernazza. I suspect he might know something about the drunk girls. Something he doesn’t want me to find out.

“Wanna finish watching Halo?” he asks me from the bathroom, as if everything is okay.

“No,” I say, “it’s just a dumb show,” and then I pick up a book from the table “I might go read.”

“Oh. Um. Okay. Weird,” he says. 

I turn and leave and as I enter the bedroom, change into PJs and lift up our grey duvet, I reflect on the evils of the world as I’ve come to know it. Criminals, in OUR lobby, I think to myself. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Ben sit down on the couch and turn on the TV, while I begin to immerse myself in this new book I’ve just purchased about how democracies always fail.

From the living room, the TV plays loudly. 

“Hey! Can you turn it down?” I yell. “I don’t wanna bother the neighbors.”

“It’s fine,” Ben responds.

“Ben,” I say.

“It’s at 32. There’s no way they can hear it.”

“It’s loud,” I say.

“It’s fine,” he says back.

Who does he think he is? Not only is this my apartment, but to be so selfish on a day like today…on a day where the serenity of Vernazza is already hanging by a thread.

As I return my gaze to my book, not that I’m in any state to read, my eyes pass over our bedroom wall, catching his ugly art, and it hits me. And I know what I have to do next. And so I reach for my phone and begin drafting an email to Bernadette — a noise complaint, for Ben, a resident in 402.