Water On The Apartment House Hallway Floor I Call In The Emergency The Maintenance Man Shows Only Hostility Towards Me

The first time I experienced hostility from Keith the maintenance man for the apartment building I lived in had to do with when I came in the front door late one evening and saw that the first floor hallway ladies room had water pouring out from under its door. This was at Hanover Square Apartments, 1 W. Conway St. in Baltimore, Md.. I had immediately been concerned that a woman had fallen onto a toilet flusher or something or maybe one had slipped on the water and was in there on the floor, so I knocked on the door then opened it and shouted in then looked in. No one was there. So I called the emergency maintenance number.

I suspect that I was not the first to see the water damages in action, because of the water being so far out in the hallways and because of the way many people who live there are.

The water was coming down from the ceiling, not from a toilet or sink as I had excepted to find. After notifying the emergency maintenance number, my immediate concern became whether the water was coming from the apartment above, where my good neighbor Donald lived. I was afraid he was stuck in his overflowing tub or something like that, so I went upstairs and checked for water in that hallway then listened at Donald's door for the sound of water moving. Nothing there indicated he was in trouble with water overflowing.

So I hustled on back downstairs to make sure none of our visually impaired residents walked onto the watery floor, and to let anyone else around know I had called the emergency in.

The live in maintenance man Keith came walking fast from his apartment past me to go to his first floor maintenance shop for tools. As he approached and passed I informed him that I had checked upstairs on Donald and found that the water was not likely coming from his place. Keith abruptly said, "I can't talk now, I've got to fix this."

I never expected him to stop and talk, as if no emergency was happening and I wanted to get his opinion on the latest ballgame or something. I just wanted to say I checked the second floor and it's OK.

He came back and I went upstairs - leaving him to deal with any visually impaired residents who may slip on the wet floor.

Keith never thanked me for calling it in and saving the building from further water damage and saving him from more difficult repair work.

Previously, I had had several brief, nice, verbal interactions with Keith, but this was the first of his later hostilities towards me. Later, he acted as if he had viewed video from the security cameras and saw that I had walked past and never called the emergency in.