The other day, someone buzzed our apartment on the intercom. I thought maybe it was the mailman, so I answered, and had the following conversation:

Me: Hello?
Dude: Let me in
Me: Um, no.
Dude: Let me in! I'm here for the scaffolding that's going up tomorrow.
Me: No, sorry, I don't know anything about any scaffolding.
Dude (really aggressively): Yes you do! Just let me in already!
Me: I told you, I'm not going to let some random person in the building.
Dude: Aw f*ck, just buzz me in.
Me: *Hangs up*

The dude decided to continue ringing our apartment for a few minutes. I started feeling a bit nervous, not to mention annoyed, so I sent C a message. He wrote back saying I should call the police (who are just up the street). But then the buzzing stopped. A few minutes later I heard quiet footsteps in the hallway and I got all freaked out. C offered to come home and check it out. I declined, but decided not to venture out for a few hours just in case. I spent the rest of the day feeling slightly jumpy. (Hey, it's gonna take a while to get used to living in a place where I can't see the entire apartment at once).

When I finally did go outside, I saw that someone had posted a letter in the entryway saying that there is a "mandatory" inspection of the boiler the following day and that we should either be home or leave our keys out front. (ha!) First of all, boiler? We have individual heating in this building, so there is no boiler. And even there was, it'd be in the basement and they wouldn't need access to our apartments. Second of all, the dude clearly said scaffolding. The words are somewhat similar (échafaudage vs chaudière), but my French is definitely good enough not to confuse the two. And lastly, I remember our apartment agent saying that the apartment already had a contract with another company, so I knew there was no way it was a mandatory inspection.

Plus, C deals a lot with frauds, and I've heard enough horror stories from him to know how these things work. These shady companies go around and put official-sounding letters everywhere, and then they 1) either force their way into your apartment and do a fake inspection of something (water heater, heating system, TV, etc) and charge you a fortune for it or 2) they force their way into your home (especially if you're elderly) and then rob you (or they stake things out and come back another time).

C decided to call them and see what their deal was, and apparently they were just as shady on the phone as they'd been in the morning. They refused to answer any of his questions and didn't even have any clue we had individual heating. Since they'd referenced our building's syndic (tenants' association??) in the letter, he then called them. Where they hemmed and hawed and basically avoided answering any of his questions as well. So now we're assuming that they're in it together and that someone on the syndic probably gets a kickback from any money made.

These kinds of things piss me off, and I felt the need to post it in the hopes that it will prevent someone else from being taken advantage of too. So many people - be it foreigners, the elderly, etc fall victim to these kinds of scams just because they don't know any better. These people are so forceful that they make you feel like it really is mandatory and that you don't have any choice.

I had to laugh that night though because then C came home and immediately installed this on our door:
But he is right, at least this way no one will be able to force their way in if I do ever end up opening the door.