My neighbor the narco
The lively and family friendly Condesa neighborhood isn’t where you’d expect to run into trouble. We were unlucky to live next to, what we very much believe, was a narco. The apartment we rented for the past six months was in a quiet part of the neighborhood. The owner had divided a large house into separate apartments, three of those used as offices by small businesses. The access to ours was through a courtyard. In January, the owner decided to rent the only available apartment, which was on the same floor as ours, but oriented directly towards the street. The access to that apartment was not from the courtyard but from a garage entrance, which incidentally also gave access to the roof, where our gas cylinder and phone antenna were set up.
The new neighbor turned out to be a young guy in his late 30s who wasted no time in letting everyone in the street know he had arrived. First of all was the fact that he parked his two luxury cars and motorcycles anywhere in the street. Then came the trash that was thrown anywhere on the sidewalk. Without consulting the owner, our neighbor set up an electronic door opener and effectively prevented us from accessing gas and telephone. When one night I had the chance to bump into him and try to resolve the situation, but he flat out denied he was renting the place.
The worst though was the noise. At any time of day or night, he decided to organize parties and made sure to put his techno music as loud as he could. At these times the street filled with the Audis and Mercedes from his friends. Being in the same building, we quickly found the music intolerable, as it made our whole apartment vibrate. All the neighbors, including many from the next door ten story building complained. To no result. For some reason, he also decided to watch TV as loud as he could. I one evening spent at least half an hour shouting at his window for him to lower the sound with no answer from his part.
We quickly realized that the guy did not seem to have normal working hours, as he sometimes spent all his days at home, as the music could testify. We also started to doubt the legality of his activities when we and other neighbors saw many distinctively dressed women come in and out of his apartment at any time of day or night. And why would you rent such an apartment when you had these types of cars? We never managed to fully discover what his business was, but speaking with other neighbors, one which worked in the Mexican judicial system, it was clear there was something fishy about the guy. Reason for which we decided not to take any risks and moved to a much quieter and nicer place in the same neighborhood.
If the guy is a narco, as the neighbors believed, then it’s scary to think that these people are not even afraid to hide anymore and that they can flat out flex their muscles, as they know that no one will stop them. Is this country getting better or worse?
