Shared spaces in an apartment building are always a test of consideration. The hallway in front of the apartments is not a storage room, a foyer, or a temporary spot for things you don’t want in your living room. In the entrance of our four-story building, we had relative peace for years. People swept in front of their doormats, no one left shoes scattered on the stairs, and strollers were neatly parked in the stroller room. The situation changed dramatically at the start of summer, when a new young tenant moved into the apartment across the hall on the third floor.
Within a few weeks, he developed an unbelievably inconsiderate habit. Whenever he finished cooking or filled a large black garbage bag, he didn’t bother to carry it down the three flights of stairs to the bins in the courtyard. Instead, he opened his door, placed the tied—or sometimes even just loosely closed—plastic bag right onto the clean linoleum in the shared hallway, and shut the door behind him. He would leave the garbage there for hours, or worse, overnight until the next afternoon when he finally left for work.
During the summer heat, the hallway turned into a nightmare within hours. From the bag, which contained meat scraps, fish trimmings, peels, and used milk cartons, greasy liquid started leaking directly onto the floor. The air on the floor became heavy and started to reek of rotting food. Every time we opened our apartment door, we got hit by the foul air that immediately seeped into our clean entryway.
We put up with it for a few days, thinking it was just a one-time bout of laziness. But when the bags appeared in the hallway three days in a row, I knocked on his door. He opened it in sweatpants, phone in hand. I told him very politely and matter-of-factly: “Hi, sorry, but you’re leaving bags with food scraps in the hallway. It smells on the whole floor, grease is leaking out, and it drifts into our apartment. Garbage belongs straight in the outside bins, not on the linoleum in front of the doors.”
The young man looked at me with total incomprehension and, without the slightest hint of embarrassment, said: “Look, it smelled really bad in my hot studio, so I put it in the hallway until I go out tomorrow morning. It can’t bother you for a few hours, the hallway is big enough.”
This absurd logic—dumping his stinking trash under his neighbors’ noses just so he could have a clean home—made me furious. I firmly told him that the hallway is a shared emergency exit, not his private dump, and if the bag didn’t disappear immediately and he didn’t clean up the greasy mess, I would take the matter to the homeowners’ association and the apartment owner. He just rolled his eyes, grabbed the bag, and stormed off downstairs with an offended look.
But the next morning, there was another bag in front of his door, this time even placed next to my doormat. I realized being nice wouldn’t work. I took out my phone, took detailed photos of the bags in the hallway, the greasy stains on the floor, and his door number. I immediately sent the photos to the HOA president with an official complaint about violating house rules and fire safety regulations, and also notified the apartment owner that his tenant was creating a hygiene risk.
The president responded uncompromisingly. That very afternoon, a warning with a photo of the trash was posted on the entrance bulletin board, and the apartment owner received a demand for immediate remedy under threat of a fine for cleaning the shared spaces by a specialized company. The owner came down on the young man so hard that from that moment on, not even a candy wrapper was left in the hallway. It was a clear example that some people’s inconsideration knows no bounds, and relying on them to come to their senses on their own is a complete waste of time.
