(This has been edited and most names have been changed.)
August 2019
Aug 1st, … I saw Claire as I headed to the office to meet Emilia. I had received a text from her verifying the time Emilia would be here. The office was open but Emilia wasn't there. Claire was showing rooms to two men, but said she would come back for me if Emilia hadn't taken the money yet. She asked me if I was going out. I said I could wait a half an hour. Emilia came at 1:09 pm, and seemed nervous as usual. I headed out to the bus stop, and the two men were waiting. They asked me when the bus would show up. I told them Google maps said 1:34 pm. They asked me how I liked the place. They said they found it degrading. They were only shown one room off the living room, and felt their privacy would be invaded when they opened the door. [I heard Claire say there was another room upstairs. -8/5/19] I told them I had a small room and shared a bathroom, which I wanted because it was cheaper, but it hadn't been a problem. I was lucky... I could get to the bathroom without having to go through the living room. They asked me if many women stayed there. I said it was mostly men. They asked if there were any strange noises at night. I admitted there was banging on the floor above me, and walking around, but perhaps that is something I needed to work out with the guy upstairs. They said that could be dangerous. [They seemed a bit afraid. -3/16/20] I said one nice thing about this place was you could interact with people if you wanted or not. I said other people said it was quiet and perhaps I couldn't generalize my experience. I did say I liked the landlady. … At 6:49 pm it sounded like someone jumped and stomped on the floor above me. I went upstairs and knocked on room 315 three times and waited a bit. There was no answer. … Emilia knocked on my door around 7:42 pm, but apologized (I guess, she spoke French) and then knocked on a different door.
Aug 2nd, About 10 minutes to midnight I accidentally banged my head against the wall a little. At around midnight, just as I had gotten to sleep, there was a bang upstairs. At around 4:35 am there were around three or more bangs on the floor until I woke up, and then they stopped. I wrote it down in this journal, then read a chapter of the Bible and went to sleep. Before 5 am, my neighbor went to the bathroom... I usually don't hear him lock the bathroom door. There were more noises on my ceiling as I started to get back to sleep, but I stayed down. I woke up at 7 am. … Raelynn texted me asking if I had received the letter, said there was another letter in there as well, and said she had mailed them on Monday. I took a note to room 315 saying "Please be careful not to bang on the floor early in the morning." I did some Duolingo, and the first subject matter was about hearing strange noises. I remember right after I knocked on door 315 yesterday, the topic on Duolingo was how you should write them a letter... I sent a request for help to TorGuard about TorGuard disconnecting frequently.
I did more French and went to the kitchen to heat up some potatoes. Damon was cooking. I looked amazed and came to see what the smell was. He told me he used to work in a… restaurant. Lucas came in saying he smelled it from downstairs and he wanted to come and steal it, and it makes him horny... Damon turned on some music and sang a bit to it. "I've been thinking, I want you to be happier." ... I saw Claire was here, and went out to ask her if I could get a handle for my knight stand. She and a tenant were shouting at each other. She didn't want him to sleep here, and wanted to spray his things... She told me he thinks he has bed bugs. He asked if he could spray the room himself, but she said this time is different. He was in a corner before, now he is in the middle of the building. Claire got the handle and put it on herself.
Aug 3rd, There was a bang from upstairs at 11 pm last night, on the wall I share with my neighbor at 4 am, and some more noise from upstairs a bit afterward. Slight improvement from before, but the problem persists. I spent a lot of time looking for a mattress cover to buy. I was looking to buy it on amazon when I heard clapping in the next room and my neighbor go out and come in. I tried looking up Home Depot and Canadian Tire websites, but Firefox started glitching, not letting me click on things, and for Canada Tire not loading search results. Drudge Report loaded quickly, I do have wifi, and Torguard is on and working. Walmart wouldn't locate a store. I got ready and went shopping. I went to Home Depot and asked if they had mattress covers. They said they didn't and recommended two stores. I asked if Canada Tire had any. They said no, but I went there anyway to check and found one there… On my way back there was another tenant who went in the side door. I went in there and saw a sign on the guy's door who has the bedbugs, saying the landlady accused him of bringing them in, but that there were already bedbugs in the building. I saw Claire who said hi. [I had just said I liked her and was being given reasons not to. -4/15/21] I did my laundry and Damon was there with one minute to go on the washing machine. I waited, and it was a long minute. He asked if I worked, and I said no, but I'm getting a work permit and will probably do something in manufacturing or warehouses. ... Back at my room, Igor came by to tell me he had been gone since Monday and just got back, so there was no way he could have made the noises. I wondered if it had been a different room. He said the guy beside him was some kind of Muslim. He has a thick accent, and it was a little difficult to understand him. He said he would try to be more careful, but he didn't think it was him. He was holding his cell phone in his hand while we spoke. ... I have audio of some of the beeping of the fire alarm, but no recordings of the banging... Internet has been slow and flakey today. Both wifi networks. ...
Aug 4th, I woke up at 2:30 with no apparent prompt. About a minute after, I heard a loud chime from my phone, no notification or apparent reason. There was a fairly quiet noise from upstairs shortly thereafter, and some stirring about in the early morning from the neighbor, but much better. Last night I cleaned up my room after Igor left and listened to some music. I started with Drifting Away then Cool Kids by Echosmith, then youtube selected a song for me entitled Of Monsters and Men which talks about how your mind is playing tricks on you and it's hard to see you like this but it will be over soon. ... I prepped my food. Wyatt, Jase, and Carl all said hi. I went to Celestial Church. ... Again today a homeless man came in who seemed new to the church. He didn't do anything extremely disruptive. He sat in the front, looked at his arms, and clapped when the pastor finished her sermon. ... I read and went to the Holocaust Museum, which was very good. The survivor for the English presentation was cancelled, the person forgot.
Aug 5th, ... I woke up around 2:30 for no apparent reason and went back to sleep, then woke up at 5:50 am and got ready. I listened to "On My Own" and read a little, but mostly relaxed on the trip. The bus did not show the bus stops for my street, but I still was able to get off at the right one. Arthur told me to take my time as I was early. I asked what work there was to do, and it was basically bringing things out of the warehouse and putting them on the shelves, which meant they needed to be priced. I asked where on the floor there was space, he brought me out and told me to start with a section. I spent the rest of the day sorting it. [This area had a camera on it. I don't know if that is true of the store in general.] Saul came out of the woman's bathroom. It was the day I was helping him look through products that I used the men's bathroom as someone was cleaning the women's. It is only one person per room. Scott also very persistently got my attention to introduce himself to me. During the afternoon he commented I really do focus on my work. This morning Arthur was taping up some rusty jagged rods I had pointed out. He asked me to spell out my family name, asked where I lived (I said Longueuil) and if I was far from the metro. .... I ate lunch with Saul, .... He also asked me where I lived, (he asked me that before) and told me about how long his commute was. He said he works this job like he takes it seriously. But kids these days are lazy. He said he had a good relationship with Arthur, which was important. … [I had apparently "caught" Arthur by asking if they no longer wanted me when I received an invitation replacing the specific days I worked with them. Apparently they feared I could most easily associate that with me being told to do illegal things and them apparently retaliating for my refusal. Then Arthur sucks up to me complimenting me and begins to watch me carefully and try to find out where I live. -3/24/21]
Aug 6th, A minute after I woke up, around 5:30 am, there was beeping, three beeps with pauses in between. This was similar to the beeping I heard before, but it was not like a fire alarm. More like an alarm clock. I listened to some music and went back to sleep. As I was starting to sleep, there was another bang on my ceiling. There was another one after I woke up around 8 am. I tried calling immigration, but they were too busy. I transferred some funds by phone to a US Canada transition account. I tried calling immigration again and got through. My mailing address is correct. The man couldn't find where my work permit was, but could confirm it was mailed on July 5th. He said it was linked to my mailing address, so it should get there in the next few days, or at least 2 weeks, so if it didn't arrive by August 12th, which was when a previous agent had said was when I could request a copy, I should call back... He didn't know anything about copies, and eventually admitted there was such a thing as a reprint, but could not confirm that I could. He said to call back on the 19th and ask about it if it hadn't arrived. I ... started cooking. Nolan comes in and starts talking to me despite me wearing headphones… He said few girls come here, and the ones who do disappear quickly, sometimes without warning. I asked him why and he said probably because they found an apartment, which you can get for $500 or $550. He would abruptly leave the conversation and come back. He said his name was Nolan... He kept trying to give me food, and told me about the food bank. I declined. He also told me an organization has a thrift store starting back up. He asked me if I had a job, and I said I was looking, and asked him about local companies... He said he really wanted to be a production engineer as that was more fun. He wouldn't have to do boring things like AutoCAD. He mentioned a few businesses and a city he couldn't remember the name of an hour away. Hythenia? He told me to be cautious of people, that there were a lot of mental patients living here, especially downstairs. I asked if they were dangerous. He said not to leave food or clothing unattended, to lock the door, and ask for a fridge. Claire might be nice and give one to me if I say I'm afraid to walk to the fridge. He offered to give me coffee or tea. I declined. He said just stay away from people until you know them. Lucas was in the kitchen... He said he didn't go to church, was a bad boy, and didn't confess his sins. He said he thought I was catholic because I looked Irish. I asked him about that and he said all Irish girls were fairies and boys were leprechauns. He asked me if I could read Hebrew. I said no and asked him why he asked that out of the blue. He paused and started looking around, saying we have a box somewhere with Hebrew and the colors of Israel. He was trying to find an association. The fire alarm went off because someone had a lot of smoke in the kitchen. I went outside to eat. Lucas came out and sat on a chair near me. He said a lot of people here are crazy, taken to psychiatric hospitals, and here things don't make sense, it's just the same thing over and over. It can make you crazy. I said that was sad, and he said that comment didn't go anywhere. I complained about the lack of response to the fire alarm, and how slow the fire trucks are. Lucas seemed amused, and said if you try anything it won’t work, because of the monkey business. I said we could all be laying in the dirt dying but we spend every day trying to make things better to get where we are. He talked about seeing patterns in things, how his pills were messed with once, but there is no way to troubleshoot "them" messing with you because they change things when you try. He talked about them being masters of slow torture. He talked about how our surveillance systems used to be sent through servers in a famous university, and how they experimented with psychedelics. I mentioned they were liberal, but said never mind. He showed me his text with Claire, admitting he texted nonsense because she did. Also in his text to Claire, he was wondering if she was M16 posing as Messi, or if I was Messi posing as a CIA recruiter. I asked what Messi was. Chinese intel. One line I pointed out he wrote, something like hope is fertile ground for deception. He said people obsessed with religion can be easily manipulated by people faking their hopes. I pointed out that was true of any desire. He said hopes and beliefs were dangerous. I said risky. He said one day when I came home, I did something with my hand that made an O shape, and it took him a week of research to conclude I was saying O O O, like Christmas. I talked about manufacturing and how they can control the process and find root causes for things and gain a high level of accuracy, and beat their competition. He wondered how that related to the psychiatric cases we had here. I said we really don't know what's going on with people, and we should be kind to everyone we meet because everyone is facing a hard battle. He started showing me more links and explaining them and said that knowledge binds us. "That's not exactly the truth will set you free." He suggested it blinds us because it is a secret. He said I know of a lot of things and if I wanted to talk, I could knock on his door. He said he wouldn't come to mine because he didn't want to look like a maniac. There were two guys standing by during this conversation.
Aug 7th, Yesterday when I took my nap I woke up at 3:00 pm. This morning I also woke up at 3:00 am. I read a chapter of the Bible and my neighbor went to the bathroom. I started getting off to sleep, and there was a knock on the floor from upstairs. This happened at least 4 times: as I started getting off to sleep there was a noise that woke me up. Otherwise quiet... I went to the second charity construction location, and waited. 7 minutes late, Sam shows up. He had seen me at the store a while ago. He said he got a strange email saying yesterday was cancelled and moved to today and this was his first time on the job site. He asked me what I do when I'm not volunteering. I said not much. I'm looking for a job, prefer manufacturing but I'm flexible. .... I called Madeline at 9:00 am and she said it had been cancelled last minute and I didn't get sent the email. She invited me to the main office for a tour. I told her Sam was there too, so he was invited as well. He got his bike, caught up and walked beside me. ... We arrived and Madeline introduced us to the team, including the president. ... They have two types of volunteers, one being people just out of jail. … Back at home I made some food and turned on the vent in the kitchen because there was a steaming pot that was not being watched. … I took a nap, and woke up out of a deep sleep at 4:00 pm feeling rough. I heard Easton shouting...