Now you hear it, now you don't

Tuesday, I went to apply for a job. Afterward, I stopped by a Future Shop to get CD-RWs and a cable, so I can transfer all the phone messages I've recorded on audio tape.

Now, before you go thinking what a techie I am, I'd only been to a Future Shop once before. Yet, I've gone there several times, recently, to look at accessories to help my situation.

I came back around 5:00pm. Tried using a little adapter I have from about 10 years ago that can record phone conversations onto cassette tape (I used this for interviews). Plugged it into the computer: presto -- it works! Now I can record messages directly from my phone onto my computer.


But, today (next day), I came home, and couldn't record. I sense something may have been switched or sabotaged - and this wouldn't be the first time. So the line-in (for sound recording) on the computer doesn't work, but it did yesterday. I also found my slow cooker on -- this is the third time I've found it on, when I hadn't even been using it, and it's even driven my utilities bill up. Plus, my bedside clock isn't working.

One could say: 'It's just a low battery -- it happens!'

First, that's three things gone wrong in the same day. Second, my landlords have been known to trespass into my apartment, as well as other people's places. I've even been home, when they were trying to enter -- not just once, but TWICE. Third, I've had every single electrical or battery-operated thing in my place go kaputz on me (including my phone, the fusebox blew 3 times, my brand-new Bionic Ear, etc). They all happened at very specific times, within a one-year period.

[Note: As I became increasingly frustrated at all the surveillance techniques being used on me, I bought a Bionic Ear for $29, which can pick up conversations from a distance. Never got to use it - it became defunct, yet it was working, when I first received it. Elsewhere in my blog, I talk about my mail tampering.]

Here I am trying desperately to record my weird phone calls onto computer. Next day, three things go wrong: computer's audio line-in doesn't work; my clock's battery is suddenly dead (it was fairly new), and the time shows 3:15pm, which is when I was out today; plus, surprise, my slow cooker is on. Haven't used it recently, and I KNOW I had turned it off. This is the third time this has happened, and it's a turn dial - not something one could turn on by mistake.

Why, you ask, WHY would they bother playing such mindless pranks?

My landlord has a history of doing these kinds of things - not just to me, but to all the tenants, who were too afraid to complain. I believe the surveillers have gleaned some useful tips, from observing both the building and my apartment, on just how powerless people can be - even in the most mundane of situations.

You'd also have to know that I'm unemployed and struggling. I won't go into all my personal and emotional difficulties, but the fact is, I'm being partially supported by my mother. All these little *breakdowns* are important -- they wear both of us down financially.

Once I get some tools, I'll be better able to show some of the problems...