Up Against the Administrator

Having moved into our micro apartment/urban cave the week before, Maurizio, the landlord, was to my surprise, fulfilling his promise to install an entry audio phone. With one gate at street level providing access to a number of dwellings an entry phone for an individual apartment allows visitors the ability to ‘buzz’ from outside. From inside the apartment you can identify the caller, release the entry gate or have a conversation.

Maurizio was on his third day of installing the entry audio phone. Having purchased the phone unit and cabling he’d completed the process of leading the cabling from the entry gate back along the passageways into our apartment. There was already a multiple entry phone at the gate providing connections for six apartments although strangely it was devoid of names, apartment numbers or any form of identification. Maurizio had been busy up and down a ladder affixing the cable to the wall, bundling it up with the existing cables wherever possible. However at one point the cables shot up the wall to the first floor, completely out of reach, so due to the height restriction he took his across the wall underneath an internal stairway, carefully and methodically securing it with clips.

In order to make the cable inside our apartment as inconspicuous as possible he’d covered it with white plastic cable casing to match the internal walls. With the fixtures in place it was now time to test the unit and adjust the wiring to ensure that the phone buzzed, both speakers worked and that the phone button released the entry gate. However, a small unassuming looking gentleman who mistook the open courtyard gate as permission to enter proceeded to interrupt Maurizio. Walking in self assuredly he greeted Maurizio obviously assuming that Maurizio and his wife were still residents. Maurizio quickly introduced the gentleman as the Administrator, Signor Lucente to Dottor Mirto (Gigi), firmly establishing some formality despite the fact that Gigi was standing there in his pyjamas, drinking coffee with me still curled up in bed hidden by the internal curtains.

SL pointedly enquired about what Maurizio was doing having noted the ladder, tools and industrious labour. Unperturbed Maurizio explained that he was installing an entry phone. Pointing at a separate bundle of cables painted yellow to match the external walls, he asked what those cables were for. Maurizio calmly told him “for the internal television reception”, to which the Administrator countered “but this apartment already has an antenna upstairs”.
“No, it hasn’t got an antenna”, Maurizio said quietly, wondering what any of this had to do with his work installing an entry phone.
“Yes, it does, and you should use it”, SL insisted.
“The previous owner who sold us the apartment built it himself, did all the cabling and explicitly told me at the time of sale that there was no antenna and that we needed to put one up if we wanted to have television installed”, Maurizio replied.
SL, pulling himself up to his full five feet nothing in deference to Maurizio’s six feet stature, said, “Oh, okay…but the antenna is right upstairs if you want to use it!”
Maurizio, now just slightly losing his patience, “Oh, well, maybe you should show us the damn thing”.

Watching this exchange, aware that Maurizio is a busy man who prefers to stay focused on the task at hand, and selfishly wanting the installation of the entry phone to be finalised, Gi interrupted, “Actually you’re busy, I’d rather you keep doing what you’re doing. I’ll go and have a look upstairs at the antenna with Signor Lucente”. With Gi still dressed in his pyjamas they walked out of the courtyard, SL leading the way up the stairs to the storey above. Gi was soon to discover that Signor Lucente owns the apartment above us and is slowly renovating it having been unable to rent it out in its current condition. SL rattled on about how they initially listed the place on the rental market at €800/month, that they’d reduced the rent to €750/month and then asked Gi if he knew anyone that might be interested at maybe €700/month. As he talked Gi thought ‘if he keeps this conversation going I’ll probably get the place myself for €500/month in another ten minutes’. Instead Gi said, “’Yeah, thanks but this doesn’t have anything to do with any antenna and I don’t want to waste anymore time”, realising that Maurizio’s earlier impatience reflected a familiarity with this man’s propensity to be scattered and unfocused.

Continuing to follow SL, the pair walked to a front door, and ringing the bell the Administrator proceeded to just walk in calling out without greeting, “Does your entry phone work?” A woman standing in the kitchen, turned to look at the pair strangely, then after greeting them politely, impassively showed SL the entry phone stating, ‘Yes, it works fine, it just needs charging”. Flabbergasted at his rudeness Gi then watched incredulously as SL reached across and placed the phone unit on charge instructing, “If you don’t mind just leave it to charge for a while”. It appeared that the usual etiquette of knocking, waiting to be invited inside, not touching other people’s belongings and not interfering in someone else’s business, especially in their homes, didn’t apply to Signor Lucente in this little slice of Naples.

Leaving the apartment with the lady who appeared to be reluctantly accustomed to SL’s unannounced intrusions, the pair approached a nearby corner of the building with a box extruding a long black antenna attached to the wall. SL confident that he was correct in his early assertions with Maurizio exclaimed, “So, here it is, there are no cables coming out of it so it’s obviously free”. Taking a closer look at the fêted box Gi turned to pointedly clarify “Firstly it’s got the biggest cable coming out of the bottom, how can you not see it? And judging from the direction, it’s coming from the existing entry phone pad at the front gate and the antenna is sending a signal to the wireless units inside the apartments”, thinking to himself ‘like the one you just condescendingly put on charge’.

SL doggedly continued, “Oh right, fair enough, nevertheless you can use it can’t you?”
Gi now slightly exasperated, “I came out ‘cos I’m interested in a television antenna. If you wanted to talk about entry phones you need to talk to Maurizio who is not only installing one right now but owns the apartment, I only rent it. My only interest is having access to an entry phone for potential guests. It doesn’t concern me where it comes from as I don’t own the place”. As he started to walk away Gi was thinking ‘this guy’s playing a different game and I don’t need to be part of it’.
“But you can still use it right?” SL called out insistently.
Engaging a fully patronising tone Gi spoke measuredly, “The only way I could us the antenna would be for an entry phone, not a TV. Saying that, there are six buttons on the pad at the front gate, and all six are allocated to six units inside six apartments. Thus you cannot have anymore units added to that existing system as you can’t have two units responding to the same button”.
Slowly nodding, yet completely unrelenting his point, “Oh right, I see, well the antenna is here if you want to use it.”

With a visual of stuffing an antenna up the Administrator’s flaccid arse Gi grunted, gave up and walked away feeling slightly pleased that he wasn’t as technologically ignorant as SL.

Striding out along the passageway determined to bring the tour of shenanigans to an end Gi was pulled up with SL raising the question from behind “What the hell is this cable? Where does it go?” pausing to study the new cabling and fixtures Maurizio had laid out the day before. Gi distracted him by talking about the television antenna, successfully changing the subject and confirming the man’s capriciousness.

It was only then that SL fully realised Maurizio had put a whole new separate entry phone at the gate, and that it might have something to do with these new cables and wires. Back at our apartment Gi jumped in to inform Maurizio that the antenna in question is for the existing entry phone system and not television reception. Maurizio agreed that that made sense. SL repeated his original question about what Maurizio was doing, and in reply was blatantly told he was installing an entry phone system including the cabling and unit at the entry gate.

Finally putting the pieces together, he went on to give Maurizio a lecture about how he should have made a request to the condominium, that is, to himself as Administrator (equivalent of Body Corporate). “Otherwise, what is the point of having someone doing the job? Someone who tries to ‘unify’ the apartments,” he inquired with obvious irritation.

Politely but with authority Maurizio told him, “Whilst the building above was considered a condominium from day dot, the apartments below were developed one at a time and where not officially part of a condominium”.
With mounting petulance SL rebutted with, “They are now, which is why we have someone representing and looking after everyone’s interests equally”.
Having moved away from the apartment and pointing above the Administrator’s head to old cables hugging the wall down the passageway Maurizio asked, “How are these different to the one I just put up, and who was consulted, and what about the pipes etcetera?”

Gigi taking that example as his cue to join in, “What is it about that particular cable that bothers you more than any of the others around it?” half in jest but also to imply how ridiculous and idiotic the Administrator’s bureaucratic approach was.

This seemed to remind Maurizio of another matter as he was now clearly annoyed, “The ‘Condo’” emphasising the word, “shares these passageway lights and the power unit on the wall, so who laid them out and where is the formal request filed Signore Administrator?” using the man’s formal title to stress his point.
Looking haughty now SL raised his chin, “There is none, mostly because whilst there was a formal request to the electricity company to provide a separate power unit for the condo this request is yet to be fulfilled”.
Exchanging a look with Gi, already suspecting the answer, Maurizio reeled him in with, “So who the hell owns the power unit used for the internal lighting?”
The Administrator dropped his eyes with the imminent fib, “Yeah well, who knows? We don’t know.”

Maurizio and Gigi instantly knew that he did indeed know and was slyly letting it be while someone else was paying for everybody’s consumption for the communal lighting either because of the inherent savings or because he disliked the individual. The mystery of the unfortunate ownership of the power unit remains unsolved.

Maurizio, having firmly established his right to install an entry phone independently returned to the apartment with Gi. Once inside he revealed, with a glint in his eye and a wry smile, “I saved the best for last. There is something else that you don’t know yet. No one actually elected this man to be the Administrator. He’s self appointed.”

A self-appointed pain-in-the-arse Administrator, imagine. He’s probably been tolerated because he’s one of the few native Italians living in a block of apartments inhabited largely by immigrants, and certainly one of only a few with some education. But his diminutive stature, sloping shoulders, caved in chest, inability to articulate, and obvious powerlessness to enforce the rules he invents arbitrarily have obviously led to our neighbours deciding that it’s a case of better the devil you can ignore.