The true horror stories in modern Paris part 54

The following morning, the sky of Paris looked gray white.  The crazy howling had finally subsided.  I could not contact the police for help, not after the compassionate Major has left the nearest station.  With the heavy sleepless head I went downstairs not knowing what to expect.  I looked into the restaurant glass façade.  Oddly, the floor had been cleaned.  Very much puzzled, I returned to the building.  Something told me to look into the residential garbage area.  I gasped.  It was filled with hundreds of empty drink bottles and a mountain of litters.  Mr. Pride had promised that his staff would take their litters out to the nearest commercial garbage station.  Like many other his promises, this was hardly observed.  Now it was up to the residents, like me, to clean up the mess because the employed cleaner would refuse to do more than what was in the contract. 

Paris revealed the dark side to me, but she was not done yet.  

It seems that there are three types of evils: First is the predators; the second is the sycophants who support and empower the predator; and the third…the hyenas.  In the trail left behind by the predators and the entourage, there lay their victims.  Weaken and helpless, desperate for a tiny hint of kindness.  They may not seem much, but most likely the easiest to exploit.  The hyenas know it.  It took me months to realize that I was standing next to one.  It was Mme. Landlord. 

To be continued.

 

The true horror stories in modern Paris part 53

The man who walked into the restaurant was a brother of Mme. Empathy.   He was obviously friend with Mme. Harmonie.  How is that possible?  

In need of some explanation that would make sense, I searched the internet.  The discovery was even more incredible.  Mme. Empathy's brother worked as a humanitarian.  He denounced Mme. Le Pen for racial discrimination, but this was the man who let his sister build the chamber of horror where I, an Asian woman, was fried above the restaurant.  This is the man who let his sister terrorize her neighbours at two restaurants and more from what I heard making many French neighbours sick day and night.  And yet he smiled in the photo like an icon of justice and benevolence.  The scary part was that he really seemed to believe he was Mr. Justice himself.  Talk about selective memory…

After midnight, I had no choice but to return to my apartment despite the party.  I hoped it would taper out.  How wrong I was because I heard a chorus from below that gradually turned into howling.  Then my apartment started to shake from stomping that continued all night.  The whole building shook from what I learnt later from my other neighbours.  I was past annoyed, I was scared.  Usually, my curiosity would beckon me to find out what was happening, but instinct told me to stay away from what was obviously a ritual of some kind.  As I listened to their primitive shouts, getting louder each time, I could not help but remember the dark souls of the butchers who lived near Notre Dame Cathedral praying on the tourists to consume their flesh.  Their shops are no more and there is a police station, but their souls that could not have been accepted into the heaven may have found a new hang out.

Nonsense, I tried calming myself.  But I sadly remembered that Mme. Harmonie knew that I suffered from the thin ceiling of the restaurant.  And yet she allowed this thunder-like gathering to happen.  No, she probably did not even remember that I existed.  I pictured herself dancing away merrily with the brother of Mme. Empathy downstairs.  Outwardly she is a respected critique and he is a revered humanitarian.   I choked on the cursed vapour invading into my apartment.  I felt sick to the core.  I was falling down the abyss of human souls that is essentially evil.  

To be continued.

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The true horror stories in modern Paris part 52

Mme. Harmonie was not beautiful.  But Scarlet O’Hara she was not either.  But the two women shared the look of determination, not letting anyone get in her way.  Mme. Harmonie derived her power from her occupation which was critique.  It would have made more sense to open a restaurant if she had been a food critique, but no.   She decided to have a restaurant on side to lean back on.  A very condescending attitude to get into any business, especially the food industry.  It is much more than providing food, drinks and a fake smile promoting ‘honest artisan experience’.  There are several reasons why there are so few restaurants are awarded Michelin Stars. 

I have come to notice that Michelin Star awarded restaurants, they mostly rent or own the floor above their restaurants so as not to annoy their neigbours.  Their kitchens with commercial size machines are kept down in the basement to protect the clients and the neighbours from electromagnetic, low frequency noise and all other health hazards.  Of course it is all costly infrastructure that requires professional integrity to observe.  What do I know but it seems a wonderful coincidence that Michelin has awarded the restaurants with CONSCIENCE, not just the taste.

Mme. Harmonie soon blasted us with all night dance bar with a disco beat music.  Had she bothered to obtain the costly bar license?  No, there is not yet a sticker of blue and red opal on the façade of her restaurant.   Mme. Harmonie knew the stereo beats would penetrate my newly applied insulation materials, but she did not care.  She was ready to dance and I had to leave the building because it was getting too much.  

As I sat on a bench near the building I saw guests after guests walking into the restaurant.  One man I recognized.  To be continued.

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The true horror stories in modern Paris part 51

You might wonder why I was not disappointed that Mme. Empathy did not get her uppercomance.  First, I had not expected any because this is not a movie, but a true story in the real life.  Secondly, it was all those men who had bent the rules and morality to indulge her ever since she could remember.  What young woman would not be affected by that?  What woman would even think of doing the right things or playing by the rules after such easy rides?  I have no sympathy for those men who ended up being trodden by her.  I was just sooooo grateful that I had survived the woman.  

The new owner, I shall call her Miss Harmony because she sent a letter to every resident and every landlord that she would like to talk and come to an amicable agreement.  No one replied, except me.  I felt sorry for the woman who had been lied to and invested her savings into this dodgy restaurant permit.  If she could agree to insulate the ceiling of the restaurant, I would have loved to make peace with Mr Pride for her sake.  With this high expectation, I went to meet the woman with Mme. Landlord. 

Miss Harmony was leaning against the wall, puffing out the smoke.  She agreed to check the noise in my room, but her tone worried me.  Miss Harmonie walked into my room and closed the window and told Mme. Landlord that I should keep my windows closed all the time if the restaurant noise bothered me.  Mme. Landlord hit back, ‘People have the right to enjoy fresh air from the opened windows!’  I gasped that a restaurant owner who serves food to the public should have little regards to the well-being of others.  Undaunted, Miss Harmonie turned to me all of sudden in English demanded that I admit that the noise of the kitchen did not bother me.  

Now, she came in the morning when there were no clients in the restaurant.  There was only one chef and he was standing quietly in front of the cooking table.  It would be different once the guests came in and the chef and his assistant chef would be rushing around the kitchen, opening and bang closing the refrigerator.  As I tried to explain this I saw a crafty grin on Mme. Harmonie.  She knew all these but trying to feed her words into my mouth.  I said ‘it would be different at later hours.’  Mme. Harmonie was adamant to trap me.  ‘But are you annoyed by the noise now?’  Seeing that she was not going to let up, I had to resort to shaking my head slightly.  It was ‘no’, but I gave her no words to quote me later.   She was taken back in silence.

She was condescending and her term of harmonious agreement was ‘we agree to all her demands, but not vice versa.’   later Mme. Landlord creased her face and spat ‘Do not expect this tenant to reciprocate decency.  She is from the lowest end of the society!’  Now I do not claim to know much about the society in France, but I had been surprised that Mme. Harmonie allowed her team to do renovation work over 4 weekends in a row in this respective area of Paris where sensible people refrain from doing washing on Sundays.   Even Mme. Empathy left us in peace on Sundays to show some class.  

Still, I was a tad surprised to detect classism in Mme. Landlord's tone.  

To be continued.

 

The true horror stories in modern Paris part 50

Finally, Mme. Landlord received the news that Mr. Pride was going to re-install the ventilation properly.  It was done while I was at school and the noise from the ventilation indeed dropped.  However, Mme. Empathy had not yet insulted her kitchen ceiling.  Other decent restaurants in Paris would either install their noisy machines in the basement, or rent or buy the first floor above the kitchen to protect their neighbours from the noise.   Of course, Mme. Empathy would install her kitchen on the ground floor directly under the residential apartments.   This meant I would continue to be exposed to the mechanical noise during the night. 

Then puzzling incidents unravelled.  As a rule if a restaurant in Paris got caught more than 3 times for breaking the regulations of public health the authority would suspend the restaurant for one month.  Well, the police had already caught Mme. Empathy 5 times breaching the regulations.  However, the restaurant from Hell was still open.  The police would have reported her case to the authority, but oddly the report was ignored.   Furthermore, the old Major who was particularly sympathetic to my case could not be contacted anymore.  As if he had been transferred elsewhere.  

It was about this time when I saw a man with the air of self-assurance dining at the restaurant and Mme. Empathy was serving him herself.  Mme. Landlord was adamant that it was the man of high-profile whose friendship Mme. Empathy boasted about, but I never believed a word Mme. Empathy said.  Besides, 2/3 of the noise was removed finally and I was happy to invest in insulation materials to combat the remaining noise.  Mme. Landlord was pleased and as my first French friend, her smile alone was my rewards.

And then out of blue, Mme. Empathy sold her business to a group of amateurs.  To be continued.

 

 

 

The true horror stories in modern Paris part 49

A week later, Mme. Empathy was in a foul mood.  ‘That Japanese imp called the police for 5 nights straight!  I thought she didn’t speak French!’  It was so embarrassing seeing those policemen calling the party off in her restaurant.  Most clients blamed the caller, but there were some who complained that they did not get their money worth.  They would not return and that hurt.  It was easy to fool young policemen with her smile.  ‘But officers, we are in the process of resolving the problem.  Please, give us time.’  Of course, she had no intention to spend a cent to solve the problem, but with her victim act she managed to send policemen away.  

However, there was this older major who was not fooled.  He had been moved by the tone of this Japanese caller, so desperate and vulnerable.  The situation had to be dire if someone with such a limited French would have to call every night.  He did a research and soon discovered that Mme. Empathy had been sentenced to pay the fine for her irresponsible management of another restaurant.  The major may have taken it as a mockery to the authority of the French police that Mme. Empathy would again open another restaurant just 2 minutes away.  

After the policemen broke up another party, Mme. Empathy was defiant.  She told the guests that the party would go on and turned on the music again.  She smirked imagining the Japanese bug, distressed at the prospect of another long sleepless night.  That bug needs to be taught not to mess with the grand dame that was Mme. Empathy.   However… 

‘Madame!’  The policemen barked as they returned 10 minutes later because they had not yet returned to the station.  Mme. Empathy could not believe that I called the police twice in the same night.  

The French neighbors would not call the police because they believed that the restaurant would not last long, but also the French tend to leave the dirty work to the others.  But I am a Japanese woman who was raised to be the rock behind her men.  Submissive, but diligent, meticulous and finally, patient.

To be continued.

The true horror stories in modern Paris part 48

The electricity risk was removed but the noise persisted.  As Mme. Empathy would stick to delaying tactics, I had to act.  

What is not widely known is that there is in fact a regulation that forbids all the restaurants in Paris to make noise after 22:30.  However, the authority will force it only if a resident of the building places a call to the police.  Therefore, it is one regulation that is defunct because most tenants do not know this.  Hell, even I did not know this until so informed by Mme. Landlord.  Then what about the owner-residents, you may ask.  After the arrival of AIRBNB, the landlords now prefer to lend their apartments out for a big profit while they move to the suburbs.  They do not care if their tenants suffer any noise.  There will always be unsuspecting tenants applying for apartments in Paris.  Their cold attitude hardened even more by the system of AIRBNB. 

 

Therefore, it fell on me to call the police because the tenants on the same floors had already left.  Their landlords did not knock the rent down like my landlord.  She was a rare gem.  Mme. Landlord would call the police herself, but she did not live in the building.  So with a shaking hand I dialed 17, the police.  The message was given in French and English.  Relieved, I opted for English.  However, the person who took the call blatantly lied to me that ‘Paris never sleeps’ and hang up.  He thought I was a tourist.  So, I tried again in French which was not still not good.  The woman who took my call had no patient and hang up.  I thought I heard a jeering laughter of Mme. Empathy as the music blasted on filling up my apartment along with the extractor vibrating noise.  I had to cower back to the small corner of my kitchen and cried.  

The following day, I rehearsed my lines over and over.  I called the police for the third time and a young man answered.  He tried to pull one over me, but I insisted in French that it was against the rule to be noisy after 22:30.  I live in Paris, I added.  He uttered, 'Ah' and transferred me to the police station of the appropriate district.   A sympathetic major answered my call and he took the address of the restaurant from HELL.  He also took down my phone number and promised to send his men.  After the call, I waited without much hope. 

Then it happened.  30 minutes later, all the noise stopped, the ventilator and the music.  Well, not all because I could hear a hysterical voice of a woman.  Mme. Empathy?  Or her new waitress?  Whoever.  The police in Paris had taken my call seriously and stopped the devil…for the night.   

To be continued

The true horror stories in modern Paris part 47

At the risk of disrupting the suspense of this horror story, I have to upload this episode to add reality to justify the claim of ‘True story’ after having linked my ordeal to supernatural.  I was in distress, but part of me still refused to believe that my near death encounter had been premediated…until my new acquaintance enlightened me as to the harsh reality of lives of workers in France.

My host was a French couple in a cozy apartment in Montmartre.  The man spoke several languages and his conversation revealed his intelligence.  He seemed a reliable character that I was not a bit surprised that he had once been elected as a union leader.  However, that was the beginning of his ordeal.  He fell victim to a horrendous power harassment from his superiors.  The French laws have, in fact, factored in this scenario and provide legal protection for union leaders, but the employers would always find a loop hole.  Of which details I cannot write here to protect his identity but the harassment got so cruel that he too sensed murderous intention.  Thus he had no difficulty believing my ordeal to be premediated.  The host continued in a resigned manner, ‘France is divided into two sectors: the privileged elites and the workers whose lives mean very little to the elites.’

It was not the first time I heard this sad phrase.  There had been another French young artist who said the same thing to me at a party.  I had just arrived in Paris with high hopes while he was uprooting himself so that his family could start a new life in USA.  So long as he stayed in France, his ideas would forever be crushed by the rich brats who are protected by the extensive connections of their fathers.  His talent was, however, appreciated in USA.  He was scouted and thus he left the elitist system that let him down behind.  I thought it was an isolated case, but one could not remain naïve for long in Paris.  I was already suffering Sound Hyper Sensitive condition which triggers palpation at hearing any noise of high or low frequency because Mr. Pride and the restaurant from Hell did not give a toss about my well-being.  My host, the former victim of power harassment, was also left with a permanent condition which disables him to work at his peak level. 

This encounter has changed my views on the infamous frequent strikes by the French workers.  I realize that they were NOT lazy bunches making demands at the expense of the commuters or tourists.  They were desperately fighting for their life, literally.  And their carelessness for details is not because they are inept, but because the system has robbed them of any hope for a better life.  Promotion is only for the rich or privileged, no matter how well you do your work.  To make their situation more exhausting is the immigrants who continue to hit their work place.  I am aware that my poor French speaking and hearing make it difficult for the French people who have to deal with me.  Had I been at a work place, the tasks of teaching me and fixing my mistakes would have been arduous for my work mates.  I vowed to remember this if I ever caught French people on their bad days.  I would still be hurt but this new ‘understanding of their reality’ would help me forget the pain quickly.  

To be continued.

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Thhe true horror stories in modern Paris part 46

My good FB friend made a valid comment last week.  I agree with him that I should not have made myself visible to the chef from Hell, Mr. Sincere, before the electrician arrived, but believe me I had it planned very differently.  Probably the first harsh lesson the expats have to learn is that ‘France does not give a rats about your plan.’  Perhaps I ought to have changed the title of this post to “pulling hair out until you go bald in Paris. 

My electrician had gone to a different address and despite the urgent nature of my predicament, he left without calling me on my mobile because he had misplaced my number.  The appointment was rescheduled after some difficulty but I knew it might all be for nothing because of what I witnessed while I waited for the electrician for his first visit that never took place.  I was watching the front door of our building from a distant when an ambulance siren was heard.  Then out came from the restaurant from Hell a man whose face had gone blue being carried out by the staff.  Mr. Sincere looked agitated as he knelt beside the man who was clearly unconscious.  It was still in March so they could not blame heat.  The ambulance pulled up.  I did not mention this incident in my last post because I do not have the full facts of what caused the man to pass out.  Was it something that the hospital would be obliged to contact the authority, I do not know.  However, I was not surprised when the electrician later found nothing in my apartment. 

It was not a total waste, the second visit of the electrician, because he discovered that our building lacked the earth tower to prevent a leakage of electricity related elements.  The architect of the restaurant would have known of this, but yet Mr. Pride and Mme. Empathy continued to allow the installation of machines after machines while putting the health of everyone around at risk.  Mme. Landlord immediately contacted the Syndic, but even they could not organize the expense for the earth tower without the consent of the other landlords…which included Mr. Pride whose reaction would continue to stupefy us.  He would oppose it until his restaurant was given more advantage.  

I was almost impressed that he could totally ignore my predicament.  What sort of backgrounds, or upbringing one must have to become like that?

To be continued.

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The true horror stories in modern Paris part 45

The compassionate Major came out to meet me himself at the police station. French people are aptly described as ‘fire and ice.’   There are those with warm hearts and the others who can cut you off instantly.  I was most grateful to the warm words of this Major who was aghast by my predicament.  He gave me the name and contact address of his superior because things were getting out of his hands.  I went to seat myself on a bench but the major arranged to have a secured detention cell to protect me from the criminals and drug addicts.  I was given full privacy for the night.  The reality did not hit me until I smelt the unusual odour of the cell.  However, this was the only safe sanctuary in the whole Paris to me that night …while Mr. Pride and Mme. Empathy each relaxed in their own fluffy bed: one was counting profit and one was planning another loud parties.

The following morning, as soon as a library opened I used their computer to book a room because my laptop was in my apartment.  After securing a room, I contacted Mme. Landlord who was horrified by the crisis.  She immediately complained to the Syndic who in turn would have informed Mr. Pride.  Did we hear anything from him?  Of course not.  

I opted to wait outside the building for the electrician...near the restaurant.  Then he came out.  The chef from Hell, Mr. Sincere.  He had come out for a smoke but when he saw me his eyes widened.  Now this was the man being criminally prosecuted for multi-frauds.  It took him a lot more serious accusation than a fraud to startle him.  He gave me an awkward smile and murmured ‘We will use more wood so that electricity does not go into your room.’  So Mr. Pride had contacted him to cover his track.  As you may imagine, 2 hours later when the electrician came…late which is usual in France, electricity leakage was no more.  The electrician found no fault with the system of Mme. Landlord, of course.   

There is a list of codes by which Samurai warriors lived by and one of them was ‘let the opponents cut your muscle so that they would come close enough for you to clash their bones.’  I guess, the last several months of my suffering was the process of letting the restaurant cut my muscles.  Now, in order to cover their track, the restaurant was forced to re-install their ventilator in the regulated way.  To ensure this I wrote a letter to the superior of the Major as advised.   I knew I still had a long way to go.

To be continued.

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The true horror stories in modern Paris part 44

Under the early morning sun, if felt like the fatal nightmare did not really happen.  But the machines in the restaurant were still there plugged on and the air in my apartment seemed heavy and dark.  I marched in and opened the windows.  It may at least release the electromagnet.  I quickly gathered things I would need to stay elsewhere and then contacted my lawyer.  My mobile was not working so I needed to rely on my fixed phone.  In Paris there is hardly a public phone around.

Following the advice of my lawyer I made a booking at a hospital and arranged an electrician to check my apartment.  The police may be witness to excess noise but they would have no device to measure electricity flood.  Mr. Pride, Mme. Empathy and Mr. Justice would claim there may have been the failure of the electric system in my apartment.  I may have been inside my contaminated apartment for just 30 minutes, but already I started to feel the effect of the electric contamination.  By the time I reached the hospital my palpation had jumped to 98 per minute.  The hospital recorded high fever too.  I was absolutely sick that they did blood test on me.  They found nothing.  And yet after 4 hours all the symptoms subsided all of sudden.  I was convinced that my room was contaminated, but I had to return for my computer in order to book a room.

I knew the stairs and the corridor was safe so I brought my chair out and started searching for a room on my laptop.  One neighbor, a Parisian man passed by.  I explained and apologized for using the public space.  He shrugged his shoulder and told me ‘Bon courage’ meaning good luck.  However, another neighbors reacted differently.  A couple was having a party and guests were coming soon.  They did not want a weirdo sitting in the corridor.  They knew of the contaminated state of my room, but the young man shouted ‘Go back!’ in English with a heavy accent.  He then tried to seize my chair.  Too afraid of what he might do with it I quickly agreed to their demand.  I returned to the contaminated room with tears on my cheek.  The couple saw it as they went upstairs but they still put on party music.  I grabbed my things and left the building.  It is after all their country, which I must respect.

However, I had not yet found a room and it was quickly getting dark. I felt so miserable that my imagination once again took me to the butcher near Notre Dame Cathedral who sold the human flesh of medieval tourists…and the bystanders who let him continue with his diabolical business.  How he was stopped I do not know, but a police station was built on the cursed place.  Then it occurred to me to go to the Police.  I asked for the Major who had been compassionate.  I wished to be allowed to sit inside the police station for the night.  The move which may have turned things around in hindsight.  

To be continued.

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The true horror stories in modern Paris part 43

The machines in the restaurant below were pounding louder than usual around me as if I were inside the dark kitchen crawling.  Usually I would have taken a glass of wine to numb my hearing against the noise, but that night I had not had any.  In hindsight I did not trust that chef from Hell, Mr. Sincere, after all.  It was not until several months later that we discovered the criminal charges pressed against him by many victims.  However, Mme. Empathy and Mr. Justice would naturally feign not to have known about his recklessness which saw me in this fatal situation.

My palm and the back of my feet felt the sting at every contact with the floor that was buzzing with some sort of electricity.  Somehow I reached for my shoes, opened the door and I crawled up the stairs.  It was still cold at night, Paris in March, but my body was burning.  I collapsed near the second floor gasping to breathe, but I sensed that I had escaped the danger.  Three hours passed while the fever and nausea slowly subsided.  One did not have to be a doctor to know that it was not illness that caused those symptoms.  I stood up and went down the stairs, not to my apartment which was now a death trap, but out the building to the street.  I looked into the restaurant from its big façade windows.  All the machines were plugged on, some emitting eerie red light, some ominously blue light.  It was not rage I felt.  Only depair that people like them are in power in the real world.  But it was no time to stop to lament for I had to find a spot of soil quickly.

As soon as I found one I removed my shoes and stood on the earth barefoot to release the electromagnetic toxins that had been charged by the restaurant.  My body still felt numb and my head felt heavy and disconnected, the symptoms I had read on the related sites.  This self-earthling method was recommended and 10 minutes later, my head started to clear.  My senses returned and then I felt chill of the cold early hours of Paris.  I must return to the death trap to get my clothes.  I looked up and saw Notre Dame Cathedral in a distance.  I remembered the article on this butcher who lived on Rue Chanoinesse near Notre Dame Cathedral luring all those unsuspecting couples who came to wed in Paris.  It was later discovered that human flesh were being sold at this cursed meat shop.  For the details, please read my episode 19 at 

http://www.thethirdredapple.com/2017/03/the-true-horror-stories-in-modern-paris.html

I would not blame you if you thought that my imagination was running wild, but the dark spirit has revived in the form of the restaurant from Hell, or so it felt that night.  The chef who supervised the installation of more electric appliances, two of them attached right beneath my floor, were being sued by many newly wedded couples.  Coincidence, naturally, but still a heck of coincidence.  I did not know about his criminal charges that fatal night, but I knew my accidental death would have pleased some people.  Was I destined to follow the trails of the victims of the cannibal butcher’s spirit behind the Notre Dame Cathedral? 

No.  I was still alive.  I had grabbed a bottle of secret potion that I had made in a big quantity when I left my contaminated apartment.  This helped enormously, no doubt.  Where were my ancestors when the flesh eating butcher was alive and well in the middle age?  I am a genuine descendent of a Samurai warrior.  The long sword was not for just defeating our enemies, but it was for cutting through the dark force.  Do I believe it?  I assure you I do not.  But I still had to act and I headed for my apartment above the restaurant from Hell, literally. 

To be continued.

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The true horror stories in modern Paris part 42

I recognized Mr. Sincere as the man I had seen wandering into the residential area of the building for the last couple of days.  There was a regulation that forbids people from the commercial area from wondering into the private residential area.  Not only Mme. Empathy did not discipline her staff, she was the one who regularly opened the door.  This annoyed my Mme. Landlord because she was respective of rules and courtesy.  She asked Mr. Pride to admonish his tenant Mme. Empathy, but of course, he ignored Mme. Landlord consistently.  The Syndic and Mme. Landlord instructed me to take photos of the restaurant staffs illegally entering the private area, which I hated to do.  I was worn down by the noise and compared to my suffering, it seemed such a trivial issue.  However, Mme. Landlord was my friend so I took some photos, but I did not send the ones that pictured Mr. Sincere.

Don’t get me wrong.  I did not fall for his charm.  I was hoping against hope that he may be the one who would finally do the right thing by me in relation to the noise issue.  Therefore, I did not wish to antagonize him by turning him in.  But what I did not know back then was that Mme. Landlord’s storage area had been broken in and her son’s computer related goods were stolen.  Mme. Landlord was furious because she shared her storage area with Mr. Pride and the restaurant.

Mr. Sincere initiated some work which removed the strong vibration which used to push me back to the other wall.  (Such was a hell Mr Pride had exposed me to and he simply shrug his shoulder.)  But the noise remained loud so when Mr. Sincere wished to check the situation in my room, I let him in to hear it.  He looked around my studio and spotted a tiny bedding in my kitchen.  He shook his head in sympathy, or so it seemed.   In hindsight, his eyes remained cold.

A couple of days later I heard the drilling noise followed by metal cutting noise coming from where else?  The restaurant from Hell.  It sounded eerie for some reasons, but I suppressed my natural instinct and tried to believe in Mr. Sincere.  I went to sleep inside the kitchen, my sole sanctuary in Paris,

It was about 02:00 am.  I woke up from a strong heartbeat.  It would not stop beating faster.  I heard a buzzing beam and realized that all the electric appliances in my studio was reacting to something.  Strong nausea came over me as my mobile phone emitted buzzing noise as if it was electrified.  Yes!  Some kind of electricity was leaking into my sanctuary.  I felt stinging sensation all over my face and a throbbing headache.  I tried to escape but my entire studio was flooded with something that everywhere I touched I felt the stinging electricity.  My body would not move well from fever, but I knew if I did not get out the apartment right away I may not live to see another day.

To be continued.

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The true horror stories in modern Paris part 41

Mme. Empathy was furious when the police ordered her to insulate her ventilator because it she did not want to invest much into her business.  She was never into running a good restaurant.  There is a record of her summon to the court following a big petition signed by her former neighbors whose lives had been wrecked by her irresponsible management of her last restaurant. But it did not hurt her one bit because in Paris you can always sell the restaurant permit and make a huge profit.  Therefore, it was essential for Mme. Empathy to invest as little as possible.  One of it was installing a cooking ventilator without insulating hood (which you would find in any normal restaurant kitchen).  It damaged my health, but what did she care?  Mme. Empathy was counting the huge profit she would make by selling the permit to a sucker.  Sure her reputation follows her everywhere, but she just needs to apply under someone else’s name and partners in crimes she has no shortage of.

 

Mme. Empathy opted to delaying tactics while wearing me down.  This really hurt.  One of my eyes was twitching and I had lost the sense of the tip of my tongue.  Mr. Pride knew about my suffering but he could not care less.  That I was not meekly bowing to his demands was far more unacceptable.  The team Restaurant from Hell decided to up their game.  

Then appeared this man in our courtyard.  I still remember that day in March when Mme. Landlord asked who he was.  He came to replace the previous chef (who had quitted claiming that Mme. Empathy was a snake).  He smiled sincerely at both of us, promising to make things better for me.  Instinct told me to fear him but I was so worn down that I wished to believe this man whom I shall refer to as Mr. Sincere.  

To be continued.

 

The true horror stories in modern Paris part 40

There was an electricity bill placed on the table between Mme. Empathy and a man, her patron.  The bill was of course was not in her name.  Would she ever pay anything herself?  Her Patron was worried if she was making profit to justify all her expenses.  Mme. Empathy turned on her radiant smile, ‘Party season has arrived.’ 

Did she tell her patron that she had her ventilator running all day at the maximum noise level to blow out ‘that Japanese bug living upstairs’ from the building?  Whatever.  It did the restaurant no good as the chef and staffs were seen hanging around outside the restaurant to escape the noise and heat themselves.  Not a sign of a good restaurant and it drove away potential clients.  A good new restaurant would take off after a month in Paris where elegant gourmets are forever in search of new gastronomical delights.  It was clearly not happening for Mme. Empathy’s restaurant. 

The noise attack from the restaurant became shorter but still damaging enough to shred my nerves all over again.  Mr. Pride complained to the Syndic that I was pretending to be suffering from noise.  He had not even checked my apartment to know one way or the other.   That he could choose to simply ignore the pain of others was...utter new to me.  I did learn new things in France, didn't I?  

Every day made me sicker than the day before…it seemed forever until my lawyer rang.  The police would finally come to measure the noise level in my apartment.  It was scheduled at 10:00 at night.  Two police men came in regular clothes so that the restaurant would not be alerted.  The verdict was delivered swift.  The device of the police found my place to be inhabitable.  It was not me being fragile, or oversensitive.  Mme. Empathy and Mr. Pride were truly running ‘the restaurant from Hell’ in Paris.  

To be continued.

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The true horror stories in modern Paris Part 39

It started out as another lovely afternoon for Mme. Empathy who had thoroughly enjoyed last night’s party.  It was also fun giving a brush off to her former Asian chef who came to complain that his recipe was still featuring in the menu of her restaurant without a due credit to him.  She could not take it off because it was the dish that earned a good review from a food critic whom she had charmed.  What could the chef do?  He was too poor to sue.

She went into the restaurant to give a job interview to a girl.  She had fired the young waiter when a raise was due.  They are replaceable to Mme. Empathy.  The trial waiter/waitress are the best kind because they try hard to impress…and cheap to pay.  Did she feel remorse?  Of course not.  Who did the waiter think he was to criticize her when he had willingly participated in her scheme?  The waiter flirted with the women tenants of the building so that they would not complain of the music or the kitchen noise.   He shared a good laugh with Mme. Empathy over a dumbfounded look on one of the besotted woman after he told her that he was in a serious relationship with another girl.  This is why Mme. Empathy loved having young folks around.  They think it is so cool to be on top of the others by foul means…only they never imagine of themselves being on the receiving end.  Trust me, they will eventually.

No sympathy was due for that duped woman either.  She first came to complain the noise but the waiter flirted with her.  How stupid could she be to actually fall for that?  Did she think she was that attractive?  She obviously did for she kept coming to the restaurant every evening looking expectantly.  Mme. Empathy was tired of serving free drinks to this stalking woman tenant.  Again, this woman tenant had no rights to reproach anyone when she had betrayed the solidarity of victims of the restaurant.  Mme. Empathy had a contemptuous smile on her when the phone rang.  It was her brother, the legal owner of the restaurant while Mr. Pride was the landlord.  The news was incredulous. 

To be continued.

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The true horror stories in modern Paris Part 38

I came to with foggy mind with spasm in one eyelid, but it could have been worse.  My blood pressure which the restaurant had pushed a skyrocket high, was somewhat under control thanks to this potion its recipe is known among Japanese, or at least passed down among my family.  I chose to make it regularly when I embarked on this losing battle against the big money, Mr. Pride, and the queen of manipulation, Mme. Empathy.  They would have liked me to shrivel up like a dead insect and disappear, taking Mme. Landlord down with me, but I was not going to make it that easy for the enemies. 

I could practice acupuncture on my own which helped putting my daily disrupted system back to some what normal.  Thus, Mme. Empathy looked puzzled when I walked past her restaurant appearing to be calm.  The truth is I was staggering but I was holding myself together with a sheer mind power.  She still needed to receive the writ of my lawsuit and my lawyer had advised me not to raise any suspicion in her mind lest she refuses to receive.

But there was another reason I had to escape my apartment.  Some long-time readers of my blog would recall a woman named Leila in the earlier episodes of True Horror Stories in Pairs series.  Introduced in my episode 7, she was a disturbed woman Algeria who held grudge against all the Parisians who would not befriend her.  She took her frustration out on the previous tenant of my apartment by repeatedly harassing the aged old man.  He barely escaped but an anonymous letter was posted to her as a warning that her malicious, bordering on murderous, intention was in fact noted.  Leila turned her toxic eyes on me, but could not touch me for a while.  Until one day she found me staggering out of my apartment and discovered that I was living in a hellish environment.  She sensed my newly developed weakness, worn down by this sound hypersensitivity.  Since then her tenacious midnight washing started and it tormented my senses already tattered by the restaurant during the day and evening.  I was fighting two evils, Leila and the restaurant from Hell.

The long-time readers would remember that Leila was removed from my life after my small act of kindness to a stranger.  My voice was slightly shaking from excess stress because Mme. Empathy held another blasting loud music party night.  Notwithstanding, I mastered up my sense of obligation to provide help when asked for it.  A poetic justice was delivered and Leila and her toxic fiancé was gone.  

Paris was really testing me.

To be continued 

The true horror stories in modern Paris Part 37

Mr Pride was preparing for a party Mme. Empathy was hosting at the restaurant.  It had already been opened two months and things were going swell, or so he was told.  The truth was that the restaurant had been hardly occupied.  Having failed to attract serious diners, Mme. Empathy opted to go party venue serving booze at a rip-off price.  It started to attract the wrong kind of clients whose focus was not on food, which was far from a Michelin starred restaurant that Mr Pride dreamt of.  

So blissfully, Mr Pride was still eager to carry out more works.  His tradesmen needed to access my apartment to install a glass roof over his restaurant.  Mme. Landlord repeatedly told him how much I was suffering because of the restaurant’s unlawful infrastructure.  It all fell on his deaf ears because he simply reiterated ‘Tell that Asian what’s-her name to cooperate.  I want my glass roof installed.’

That morning I woke up with unnatural shiver.  The temperature was not low therefore I was not shivering from chillness.  In hindsight, I was suffering the initial symptom which resulted from the excess exposure to electromagnetic waves.  PASU the authority prohibits the restaurants located inside the residential buildings from installing a large commercial freezer/fridge because of the electromagnetic health hazard, leading to cancer.  Mr. Pride and Mme. Empathy of course chose to lie to the authority about it.  The large appliance was installed days before the two-month expiry date.  Now I was being exposed to two cancer-causing hazards: low-frequency noise from the bare extractor over their cooking stove and electromagnetic from their illegally large electric appliances.  You would think that Mr. Pride and Mme. Empathy could not have harmed me more. 

But it happened.  The first blast of music and disco beats that rippled through the walls of the old medieval buildings.  It used up so much electricity that the light on the stair hall went out and one of my PowerPoint was burnt.  Earplugs, earmuffs, nothing helped.  I crawled to the corner of the kitchen, but the beats kept attacking me.  I could hear the guests downstairs cheer repeatedly not knowing of my predicament.  Joining them was a Mme. Empathy who was on the top of the world.  It went on until 03:00 am or longer I would not know because I passed out.   The police, or the justice would not come to an Asian like me.

To be continued.

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The true horror stories in modern Paris Part 36

With the departure of the Asian chef, the last ounce of conscious left the restaurant.  New replacement chefs, there were a few of them as not one lasted long under Mme. Empathy’s management, they would all set the ventilator at the maximum strength convinced that a due insulation had been applied.  Of course, it would not occur to Mme. Empathy to correct their error.  So I was exposed to both the high and low-frequency noise, the latter which rocked my wall and furniture.  While the high-frequency noise would offend our hearing, the low-frequency noise would penetrate our skin and grab our internal organs to shake it relentlessly.  The shaking furniture showed me what was happening inside me. 

Ironically, it was a French researcher who first discovered the damage of low-frequency noise, yet it is the citizens of other nations, Germany for one, that are protected by the regulations.  While the human ears eventually would get used to the high-frequency noise, the low-frequency noise would be accumulated inside our system and the symptoms would appear after months, making it difficult to pinpoint the cause.  In my case I was exposed to the intense level that I developed the symptoms after only 2 months: insomnia, dizziness, stiff shoulder and neck muscle and finally numbness of hands that I frequently started to drop things.  All the articles on low-frequency noise suffers’ syndrome say it would lead to depression and a few years later…suicide.  Thus its alternative name is ‘Silent Killer.’  I booked a room elsewhere to escape after the two months period was up.  (Please, read the part 25 that explains the importance of two months)

It was finally two days away from the two months expiry date.  I had submitted the noise diary, the hours and the level, to my lawyer.  By this time, my sense had weakened so much that even church bells could punch me in between my lungs.  In fact, any noise could jerk my body.  There was no rest inside my brain…and yet it happened.  The shrieking drilling noise penetrated my floor from the restaurant.  Mme. Empathy had decided to install a giant electric appliance for which she did not receive permission from the authority.  I thought it had been a hell, but the rock bottom was yet to come.   

To be continued.

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The true horror stories in modern Paris Part 35

Mme. Empathy was being confronted by her chef.  ‘Madame, you lied to me.  I only agreed to install the extracting ventilation directly on the ceiling because you assured me that the ceiling had been insulated.’  Mme. Empathy replied with a smile ‘but it is!  I cannot do any more insulation than this.’  He did not quite believe her because this chef did not abuse the extractor to his credit.  Any chef would know the hell I was being put through upstairs.   At least the other chefs I had the chance to consult was aghast.  

I was incessantly hit by relentless vibration that my hands started to shake regularly.  My lungs and my necks felt oppressed that I desperately needed to leave the apartment.  However, I had to go back and record everything for at least one month.  The police would only come and measure the noise level only after I have suffered and got affected by it.  My lawyers needed time to gather all the necessary documents and the tribunal in France required HEAPS.  Many times I had to grit my teeth to prevent myself from vomiting.  Every time the extractor stopped I would drop down on the floor like a puppet with a string that got snapped.  At least 10 hours of this every day and all the muscles around my neck and my shoulder became stiff as rock.  

Mme. Empathy was annoyed that her mood was ruined by being reminded of me.  I knew she was more angry than sorry because I had run into her one morning.  She looked at me like a trouble maker whom she had every right to be indignant with.  She tried to get the chef to agree with her by saying, ‘that Asian woman is exaggerating to deceive money out of us.  It can’t be that bad if she is staying.  Asians can breed in any kind of conditions, can’t they?’  like cockroaches, she means.  She was not born a French but a naturalized one.  Mme. Empathy did not realize that her chef, whom she had hired in order to ride on the Asian cuisine wave in Paris, did not reply.  Shortly afterwards, the Asian chef quit the restaurant.   This I heard from the other chef who would also quit the restaurant later.

To be continued

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