This story reminds me of a lady who lived in one of my childhood cities. She
lived on a corner house that exuded beside a regularly traveled street. (4th
and Ash) Anyways, as every place one can live as a child seems to inhabit
some mysterious persona of fear, she was ours. She was never seen, ordered
in and had lived in the particular residence long before anyone could place
her. The most obvious of her idiosyncrasies was that the outside of her
entire house (windows and front door included and only excluding the roof)
was wallpapered so to speak with aluminum foil. It was rumoured that this
was her means of repellant against the aliens. This would protect her from
them. At the time, I recall assimilating this to the likes of the tradition
in India, where mirrors protect people when placed strategically in fabrics,
bags etc. from evil spirts. Their theory is if the evil spirit see's his own
reflection, it will scare him away. I once had a bag that I purchased from a
friends "hippie store" with these mirrors on them. Although I never met the
mysterious shiny house lady or the original person in question from the
previous story, It makes you wonder about the human psyche. (twilight zone
music plays in the background- collective consciousness) anyways, I use
mirrors for various purposes, however not one of them are these, the same
goes for aluminum foil. Just thought I'd throw in a similar character for
notation.
Nanogirl
>Yup. The landlord said the guy lived there several years, alone, with
>almost no furniture. All the foil was hung shiny side out (?). Software
>guy for Taligent. He paid the rent on time and wasnt actually damaging
>the apartment, soooo, OK. Indeed, there were not even
>any nail holes in the walls for pictures. The landlord didnt ask for any
>explanations, and the guy didnt offer any. I dont know if he was
>seeing a shrink. He had done all the windows too, and even the
>glass sliding door, which made it so it couldnt even be used as an
>exit, without wrecking the, uh... decor.
>
>Landlord said the guy called one day and said he had moved out
>and the key was under the mat. Never heard from him again, left
>the aluminum foil behind and never even asked for his cleaning deposit
>back. The worst part of it was removing all the tabs of double sided
>tape. Fortunately, the landlord knew that trichloroethylene kills the
>sticky on most kinds of tape, so it comes away cleanly (free household
>cleaning tip).
>
>{8^D spike
>