For about 5 years in the early 90s, I lived in an apartment where I snuck a
multiband dipole onto the roof. It was lying flat on the roof, so may as
well have been inside.

My downstairs neighbor was a then middle-aged woman who had pretty severe
emotional problems, part of which were caused by the fact that she never
left her house for any reason.

She figured out one day that I was a ham, and from that point, whatever went
wrong in her house was my fault.

What probably saved me from eviction, or from at least being told to take
the station down, was the fact that this poor lady had always complained
constantly about all of her neighbors, regardless of their character.

Once she did call the cable company after a television automation glitch
caused about 3 commercials to change in the middle. She made sure they knew
that I had caused it.

They actually sent a service tech out to order me off the air. Since I had
not been home when the incident occurred, I simply refused, and called the
director of engineering while this guy stood there with his mouth open. The
real engineer listened to my list of cable leaks, and came out the next day.
He found 6 unauthorized connections in the building next door.

the office manager told me a short time later that I was now a member of a
very large club consisting of everyone that she had ever tried to run off
from the apartment complex during the 15 years that she had lived there.

Since it's Halloween, one other incident with this lady is very timely. Once
after several days of very cold weather, she called to ask if I knew my
apartment was haunted. I played dumb just to see where this one would go.
She had heard the building make those little snap and popping sounds that a
wooden structure often makes on a very cold night. Since I was out of town
when she heard it, the logical conclusion was that my apartment, not hers of
course, was haunted.

I probably shouldn't have done it this way, but I just couldn't help telling
her that Casper was indeed a very friendly ghost, and that I would ask him
to keep the noise down.

Mike Duke, K5XU
American Council of Blind Radio Amateurs