Who gets to clean the mess?

Last Tuesday (August 22nd) I went out with a couple friends to celebrate their birthdays. Upon returning home at 11:00pm, I saw my landlady standing halfway up the steps that lead to the upstairs door of her place. I rarely, if ever, see her outside at night. This was very peculiar to me, especially since she was in her PJs. I soon noticed that she was on her phone. I was still in my friend's truck when I saw Tom appear from the apartment and then saw our landlord carrying a red baseball cap and a hiking boot. They were looking at the door to our apartment and then searching around the building. Something was definitely wrong! I left my friend's truck and told her I would call her and let her know what was going on.

As I approached the apartment our other neighbours appeared. He was standing on the deck and she was on her phone too. There was also blood on the entrance to our apartment. (GROSS!) Apparently our landlords noticed someone running around outside our building. He then got into their truck and left through the door on the other side of the vehicle. Two others showed up and then took off when she said she was calling the police. He then came up on our deck and came through the entrance to our apartment. Luckily Tom was sleeping and had locked the apartment door. Our neighbour who shares this entranceway was out of town at the time and his door was also locked. The guy did manage to bleed on our neighbours door too. The guy also want outside our place and was banging on the large window to our apartment. As I mentioned earlier, Tom was sleeping when this started. At first he thought I misplaced my key and wanted in, but he soon realized that there was something wrong - there was too much banging, too many strange noises. The guy also charged at the neighbour when she told him she was calling the police.

Our neighbour told me she had waited for someone to pick up the phone for 13 minutes. Hmmm...whether that reflects the competency level of the Inuvik RCMP or the Yellowknife call centre (where many calls are received) is unknown, but what I do know is that it is 100% unacceptable! Thank goodness this character was not wielding a knife!

Back to our little drama... The guy disappeared shortly before I showed up. Our landlord to him to sit and wait while he went to pick up his hat and boot, but when he got back, the guy left. He seemed to have gone under the building and into some bushes. At this point I called the RCMP and they answered right away. I gave them our address and they said they would be right over. After 5 minutes, I called back! Remember, Inuvik isn't very big, so a call to the police about a man, high on something and trespassing (vehicles and our apartment entranceway), as well as banging on and smashing things, should not have been answered with a leisurely "Sunday-Drive" to our place. As I made the second call, the RCMP vehicle approached our street. I flagged the officer over. Meanwhile, Tom located the guy behind our house. He was now banging on the house of the people who live behind us. (I am not sure if that was the house where there was a drug bust a couple months ago or not...may have been their neighbours)

The officer took him away, and we were left to clean up the blood from our door. Needless to say, I had a hard time sleeping that night!

By the way, we also found the guy's other boot in our entranceway later that night. As a courtesy, Tom mentioned to an officer that we would leave the boot there for a while if they (not the hoodlum) wanted to pick it up. Yesterday, Tom got rid of the boot and wiped away the hand prints off of our window. The incident is not just another wonderful memory of our 'northern experience' - Oh, the joy!