BARBELITH underground
 

Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.


Help me deal with my local neighbourhood crackheads

 
  

Page: (1)23

 
 
trouble at bill
13:31 / 20.11.08
So, this morning I step out my flat and into the corridor I’m hit by the smell of piss and crack smoke and cheap perfume and realise that yet again, the local crackheads have got into my block somehow and been using it as a squat, brothel, boudoir, crackhouse etc all night.

I hear movement on the upstairs landing and realise to my fury that someone’s still here, which means I have to go and ask them to leave. I’ve got my hat on (good, because I’m relatively anonymous) but no phone and no weapon (bad, because it means I am on my own and probably fucked if it comes to a ruck).

Feeling fairly sick with adrenalin I stick my head up the stairs. There’s only one left (good, because it’s a one-to-one) but it’s a female (bad, as IMLE females are harder to handle because they think you won't get violent with them (correctly, in my case) and can really give serious grief up to and including assault).

I speak and find myself faced with a surprisingly cute and worryingly young-looking woman, early twenties at the oldest. Anyway I ask her to leave, not really very nicely but making it clear that I’m only doing it because I don’t want people taking the piss out of residents who work hard and pay to live in the block, and piss-taking is what has happened in the past. (I never used to throw people out, in fact, in the old days, before all the trouble started.)

Immediately I could see I had a problem. This one was not going to go quietly. After various bits of gobshite about how she wasn’t doing anything wrong and how I wasn’t a cop so I couldn’t do anything I made it clear that was going to escort her out come hell or high water.

She then starts to stall for time, saying she needed to fix her bra and how rude it was of me to try and watch a lady get dressed. I was going to be late for work, but as I make my own hours I thought that I was going to see this one through so I went down to the landing below and waited patiently while she “fixed her bra”, or more likely smoked a pipe or something. She supplied a running commentary on the alleged bra-fixing process but as I was looking out of the window I saw a load of crackwraps flutter down, obviously thrown by her from the window directly above.

Eventually she came down and I said I’d show her the door. She said I was a real gentleman. As we stepped outside she said very loudly that the sex I’d just paid her £20 for wasn’t very good though she had quite liked the bit where I’d liked her pussy. I made sarcastic comments back to the effect that she wasn’t even worth 20p and thought that was the end of it.

But, it wasn’t, because she decided that as I had seen her to the door she would see me to the station! So I walked to the station with her. What was I supposed to do? I think she was trying to embarrass me for chucking her out but I have no particular problem with walking along with a crackhead, not that she looked much like one anyway. Seeing I wasn’t very bothered she soon stopped making loud and false allegations about liaisons we had never had, and my sexual prowess and/or lack of. She started talking to me properly and I talked to her properly. (See? I may think that some crackwhores are scum of the earth, but I am open to the possibility that some are not, and that some may even be quite nice people.)

She told me she smoked £200 or so worth of crack a day. She came out with other stuff which basically had two angles. The first was that women on the streets were often abuse victims with serious substance-abuse issues, and that if I ever bothered talking to them I’d hear some terrible stories. The other line was that she was different to that, she was very lucky, had a good family and only binged from time to time. Most of the time she lived at home and went to college where she was doing catering and on Sundays she even went to church. I don’t know which of her lines of talk was true, or even if any of it’s true. We also talked a bit about the new laws on prostitution which may affect how she earned her crack cash (or may not) but we didn’t come to any firm conclusions.

Then we got to the station and she suddenly got quite close to me and – given that someone getting close to you means they’re going to try and jump the barrier with you as you go through – I told her she wasn’t going to jump the barrier with me. She looked at me and for some bizarre reason which I can only assume to have been drug-related started tearing up. I was a bit fazed by this and said, “Make sure I don't find you dead on my stairs sometime, yeah?” She promised I wouldn't and then said really, really loudly so it echoed through the ticket-hall, “Next time you lick my pussy, make sure you lick it at the corners!” I laughed and told her to fuck of in a fairly friendly tone. And we went our separate ways.

I thought I’d post this here for two reasons. First because if I end up stabbed to death by her pimp later on tonight then someone can tell the law what started it. Second, because I am curious to know what people think of it all. Whether you think I should have called the law, threatened her, left her alone, given her money, whatever. Thanks in advance for your thoughts my weird, weird start to today. I’m basically bloody clueless when it comes to the Invasion of the Crackheads and I want to be better-informed if I find myself faced with Invasion of the Crackheads II. Which, knowing my locality, I will soon enough.
 
 
mashedcat
14:49 / 20.11.08
hi bill ,bit of a dilema ,one/two quick question(s) then i`ll get back to you. why should you need a weapon? that would make you the problem, or would it?
 
 
Eek! A Freek!
15:23 / 20.11.08
Musak. Musak and bright lights. Talk it over with your super and other residents. Musak loud enough to be heard in the halls, but not in the apartments.
Seriously.
 
 
trouble at bill
15:26 / 20.11.08
I hopefully wouldn't, but having had more threats/attempted muggings/low-level assaults than I care to remember I feel healthily paranoid in my area and from time to time I just find myself wishing that I had such a thing. Deplorable perhaps, and not a sentiment to act on, but it is how I feel and I'm sure I'm not alone feeling that way. However, there was never any violence on the cards in this case, I'm sure of that much.
 
 
trouble at bill
15:29 / 20.11.08
Oh that was > Mashedcat.

Musak? Hmmm, it has been used as an 'environmental pacifier' in various cases, I believe...
 
 
Papess
15:37 / 20.11.08
A recording of helicopters would clear them out really fast.
 
 
Papess
15:38 / 20.11.08
Or sirens, off in the distance.
 
 
Eek! A Freek!
15:41 / 20.11.08
Picture being whacked out of your gourd and having to endure even wussier instrumental versions of lite-rock classics? It stands to reason you'd wanna get the hell out... And if the crackheads try destroy the speakers, you have that much more reason to involve the cops.
It worked in some bad areas of NYC - Shopkeepers would play it inside and out to drive the dealers, hookers and miscreant loiterers away. Might work for you guys...
(As long as it stays in the halls and not in the apartments...)
 
 
Mistoffelees
16:35 / 20.11.08
Show zero tolerance and call the police. Many drug addicts steal, mug, threaten people to get money. The police might already have the person on file and could put them behind bars. And so you would do your part against drug related crime. Maybe some people in the following weeks will not get beaten or stabbed because you called the police.
 
 
dark horse
17:44 / 20.11.08
yeah i'm no fan of the cops but they might be the way to go when dealing with these people... addicts are scum, plain and simple.
 
 
jentacular dreams
17:57 / 20.11.08
Now that's what I call zero tolerance. Have a little sympathy will you stallion?
 
 
StarWhisper
18:09 / 20.11.08
Addicts aren't scum, but they can be dangerous and threatening. I'm also no fan of the cops, but yeah, I would call them. Some people are quite vulnerable and are easily taken in by addicts who are manipulative and befriend them,or won't have their guard up and get robbed so I'd want to clear up that situation really fast. And not just because I'd be pretty scared myself.

Oh and that isn't to say drug addicts are terrible people or anything, just that desperation can make beautiful people do terrible things, that's all.
 
 
Mistoffelees
18:42 / 20.11.08
Oh and that isn't to say drug addicts are terrible people or anything, just that desperation can make beautiful people do terrible things, that's all.

Hunter Thompson summed it up with "You can turn your back on a person, but, never turn your back on a drug." Such people in your house pose an incalculable risk to you. Sure, they need professional help, but not from you and not in your home.
 
 
Eek! A Freek!
18:44 / 20.11.08
To continue quoting counterculture heroes:

Never trust a junkie
William S. Burroughs
 
 
dark horse
18:49 / 20.11.08
why am i being singled out when other people have said the same thing? look don't get me wrong i like a doobie as much as the rest of us but i think crack and heron are a whole other thing... crack is a real problem in a lot of neihborhoods,.
 
 
Spatula Clarke
19:11 / 20.11.08
Yeah, man. I freebased a heron once and I was off my tits for weeks.

This thread reeks of shit.
 
 
trouble at bill
19:18 / 20.11.08
Not unlike the stairway inside my block...
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
19:50 / 20.11.08
Oh and that isn't to say drug addicts are terrible people or anything, just that desperation can make beautiful people do terrible things...

Seconding the desperation bit, having witnessed it myself on several occasions. I've cursed more than one crackhead as scum in my time, but at least I knew them personally when I did it. Writing off a whole segment of humanity as scum is a little, eh, not to my taste.

Of course, catching one crawling out your window in the middle of the night with your television tends to make one forget the wonderful person they may have been before the addiction took its toll. There's a line to be drawn between helping someone beset by a terrible addiction and being able to have nice things that aren't nailed down. I recommend calling the police. Muzak sounds interesting (booo puns), but I'm wondering about its effectiveness.
 
 
ONLY NICE THINGS
19:53 / 20.11.08
Dude, I can't believe you didn't ask her out. Does she have to take out an advert?
 
 
dark horse
19:53 / 20.11.08
yeah there is nothing cool about crack. best leave dealing with crack heads to the professionals ie those who are paid to fight the "war on drugs"... the cops...
 
 
Papess
20:09 / 20.11.08
Never wage war on drugs.
 
 
Closed for Business Time
20:50 / 20.11.08
Indeed. Make love to them.
 
 
dark horse
21:15 / 20.11.08
this is crack we're talking about.
 
 
Tsuga
21:29 / 20.11.08
Is it?
 
 
Mistoffelees
21:32 / 20.11.08
"There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in"
- Leonard Cohen
 
 
Closed for Business Time
21:46 / 20.11.08
Which is why I do a lot of mooning.
 
 
Hallo, Paper Spaceboy
21:56 / 20.11.08
"Give me crack and anal sex / take the only tree that's left / and stick it up the hole in your culture..." Leonard Cohen.
 
 
dark horse
02:56 / 21.11.08
lol

but seriously bill i can relate to your problem, the neighborhood where i lived in for a while i'm pretty sure had some crackdealers, i would sometimes see them standing on the corner on my way home from school and had to cross the street to avoid them...
 
 
Alex's Grandma
03:59 / 21.11.08
I feel as if Flyboy should be getting on with his novel, instead, it seems, of routinely unleashing his dark matter self, his Mr Hyde, if you will, on the interweb.

But then again, what do I know? Maybe this is the book, or extracts thereof, anyway?

'stallion' - an experimental piece.

Well it might work. Who's to say, in these confusing times of ours.
 
 
Quantum
09:46 / 21.11.08
Mist is right, call the police and move on. I've dealt with similar situations to what you describe, and it's never worth the effort and grief to deal with it yourself. Also they have big sticks and stab vests just in case, and after getting hassled a couple of times by big people in blue the crackheads will find another block to squat, making your living space nicer.
 
 
mashedcat
11:12 / 21.11.08
godstallion: to some people, (not me though ) all drug users are scum , irrespective of their drug of choice, cannabis , heroin, crack , meth or alcohol. therefore i find it odd that your vice is acceptable and others vices make them scum.(i`m referring to your doobies)
addiction is an illness according to the `world health organisation`,and is treated using scientific proceedures.
i have worked all my life caring for addicts or rather people with substance misuse issues, and i feel confident that i have not wasted my lifes work.
to the original statement, of how to deal with the problem i think that the police are possibly the best agency to deal with this ,,is the problem their addiction or that they are tresspassing, these may be separate issues. and it may be useful to think about . i`m sympathetic to anyone who`s peace is disturbed at home.
 
 
Anna de Logardiere
11:24 / 21.11.08
You know when I get into these kind of situations and young girls who like crack follow me to the tube station and try to get into my knickers I think about moving house.
 
 
mashedcat
11:33 / 21.11.08
`crack and heroin are a whole other thing`,,,you`re right some drugs are less damaging to humans than others . methamphetamine and alcohol are also extremely dangerous, yet atittudes towards some substances are inconsistent.
from a professional point of view alcohol is often considered to be the worst. more deaths per year than all other drugs put together, more damage to society through public violence ,through lost time at work, through cost to the health service , through attacks on staff trying to help those who are drunk, through the misery of the families of those who are dependent on alcohol, through poverty caused by dependence.
anyone who finds them selves in the position of being dependent on any substance needs help to regain their dignity and control of their desires.
police attitudes towards `users` has much improved , and they can help `the users` to get the treatment necessary for their recovery.
 
 
mashedcat
12:25 / 21.11.08
bill what in the name of all that is smoked ,snorted or injected ..... is,IMLE???????
 
 
Quantum
12:29 / 21.11.08
in my Likeable opinion? in my Left-wing opinion?
 
  

Page: (1)23

 
  
Add Your Reply