Inside Stories

Inside Story: Why I let my neighbors steal my newspapers for four years

By Anonymous Manhattan Co-op Owner  | March 5, 2010 - 10:32AM
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Four years ago, I started subscribing to the New York Times, the Daily News, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post.

Then one morning I heard the guy across the hall open his door and my newspapers were gone.  The whole stack.

I let it go because I get the full set of papers comped at work, and also because it just wasn’t worth the confrontation: He was a really grumpy old man who just growled and grunted at people– like the man from the movie “Up” but 6’ 3”.

This went on for several years, until he died.

After that, I started to get the papers for about a month. Then one by one they started disappearing again, except for the Post.

This time it’s the lady next door to me. She’s a very quirky older woman who has been in building for 30 years.

She’s very nice and actually reads my papers for me and pulls articles out and puts them on my door with a magnet and a thought-you’d-be-interested note.

The reason I don’t ask her to stop, or confront her, is that we have a nice little thing going: She’s my built-in nanny-cam.  

She is home all day and tells everything my nanny does with my son. She will tell me she saw my son and nanny walking and singing a song and totally happy together. Or that another nanny brought three kids over for two hours. Or she will tell me really loved the way my son was talking to my son in the hallway.

She's like my own little Reader's Digest.

(Editor's note: Inside Stories a series of first-person glimpses into life in a NYC co-op or condo building. Names and identifying details have been changed. If you have a story to share, drop us a line.

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