Upstairs, Downstairs

One of the symptoms of dementia is increased aggression or irritability. Grandma has always been feisty, so with the dementia she has irritability by the truckload! No one causes her more rage than the tenants upstairs. These poor people can do nothing right in Grandma's book.

For starters, they had the audacity and poor taste to name
their daughter Anna. For most people this name is not a problem, but for Grandma it is a huge affront and she keeps threatening to "set them straight" about it.

If it is loud upstairs, "It's 9:00 and they got their kid running around! And he drops his shoes on the floor! They need to get rugs! I'm gonna tell them and hit them over the head." If it is quiet upstairs, you think Grandma would be happy and relish in it. Oh no. She still has something to say. "I think they're not home. You think they'd tell me when they go away!"

The garbage is another sore spot. Grandma has a weird system where she has a large garbage can with a bag, but does not use it. She uses a small shopping bag on the back door OR a small shopping bag within the large bag that she transfers to the bag on the door. What? For some reason, Grandma obsesses over the amount of garbage the tenants put out. I'm not sure why this is an issue, the city collects it twice a week. She has decided that the tenants both work at a supermarket (dubious information at best) and that they sneak garbage home!
"Grandma, why would they bring home garbage?"
"Because! The supermarket has to pay for pick up and it's free here."
I don't know where she came up with this theory or see any logic behind it. The supermarket is a large chain. I'm sure they can handle their sanitation fees. Plus, the "extra" garbage the tenants put on the curb is typically about two bags. How much garbage could they really be smuggling home? And why would they do that anyway?

Perhaps predictably, the tenants incite the most wrath when they use the clothesline You know that Grandma is very particular about how clothes are hung. She has a system and expects everyone to adhere to it. The tenants' hanging skills are so bad that it's almost delightful. Half the time they don't even use clothespins, they just fold the clothes over the line! Which brings us to today's raging in the yard:
"I only do the wash on Mondays. They've got the whole week to do laundry!"
"It's Thursday, Grandma."
"Look at this! You can't hang like that! It'll never dry. You can't put things on the top and bottom line. They're gonna wear out my line! It's old!"
"Dad just bought you a new line."
"Well, I don't mind if they use my line, but they need to stop abusing it! I can't even say anything to her. She don't speak English."

And for that language barrier, thank God!