So. Let me preface this post by pointing out that I watch a lot of murderific tv shows. I don't like horror, but I definitely like things that are dark and/or psychological. Mix my viewing habits with stress of starting the new semester, feeling crappy from eating too much sugar this afternoon, and how creepy the trash room is normally, and you'll understand how I came to find a (sort of) dead person in the trash room.
I live on the sixth floor of my building which means I get to throw my trash down a chute and never have to take cans to the street, a lifelong goal. Unfortunately, the chute is located in a tiny room at the opposite end of the hallway. It smells vaguely like the powder meant to soak up puke in hospitals mixed with warm bleach. Cockroaches climb all six stories and somehow wiggle their way out of the chute and into the room. The light is turned on by a sensor when the door opens. Cockroaches tend to scatter when lights turn on so I usually kick the door in and let it swing before I go in.
On to the story.
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Our trash was packed with things that smell weird - orange peels, Chipotle leftovers, chicken carcass, dead plants - so I slipped on some flip flops to make a run to the trash room. On the way, I noticed that an apartment down the hall had crap taped to the door. (Our next door neighbors typically have take out menus and 4-7 newspapers piled up so this was nothing new for our floor.)
Sure enough, a missed delivery from UPS and a take out menu tucked into the door frame. Nothing out of the ordinary except painter's tape holding up a vacancy notice.
From what you can see, this apartment seems to be abandoned. Who knows. The only people I see in the elevator get off on lower stops. As far as I know more than half the apartments on the sixth floor are empty. Weird.
Here's where my mind starts working. What if there was someone living there and since no one ever saw them, they died without anyone knowing? People only noticed when rent wasn't paid but no one saw the tenant leave... The property managers could easily walk in and find a decomposing body or worse. Things like this happen ALL THE TIME, according to primetime dramas and my extensive watching of medical examiner shows on Discovery Channel.
I continued the few feet to the trash room, considering the gruesome scenes the maintenance crew was sure to walk in on. I did my usual ninja kick to the door to clear cockroaches and lizards, only to see a glimpse of a WOMAN"S HEAD, eyes closed, lying on the floor. The light flicked on during the closing swing with only an inch or two of the room showing.
WHAT THE F***?!?!
Upon closer inspection, the woman was not decomposing or, in fact, dead. I assume she's a model for the stock photo that was slapped on this ritzy pillow that is sold in a box instead of just a plastic sleeve.
Terrifying.
