Translated material
Prepayment for cats
Cat's life versus bureaucracy
The growl of an angle grinder and the grinding sound of a foundation being drilled burst into the quiet piano world—a mother in the back room was preparing a student for an exam. I looked out into the yard: two people in work overalls were drilling into the wall; black metal gratings lay along the basement.
– What are you doing, may I ask?
I’ve already gone down and met the hard workers.
– We put bars along the entire house, close the dormer windows in the basement.
- There are cats there!
– We have an agreement with the building manager, go to apartment 44 and find out.
I'm calling apartment 44.
- House manager?
– I’m not the building manager, but the chairman of the building management! Today is Thursday, and the reception day is Tuesday.
- Wonderful, but I stopped the work you assigned there! Shall we discuss? Why do they put bars on the basement?
– We are fighting vandalism so that glass blocks are not knocked out.
- But there are cats there!
- And we will catch them.
– Show the act on the basis of which you entered into an agreement to install gratings.
The lady handed me a stack of papers. It turns out that almost no one showed up for the March meeting, and in April, residents were given absentee ballots. There, of course, there is not a word about cats, but only about vandalism, and the figure is significant: 86% voted in favor. Later, after interviewing neighbors, I learned that no one signed anything.
“We’ll sort it out in court,” I told the lady and returned to the workers.
- Roll up, guys! I have lived in this building for forty years and am categorically against bars.
They called the foreman, who was polite and friendly:
– If you are worried about the basement cats...
- Of course I’m worried, we feed them!
– Yes, yes, I understand and promise that wherever the dormer windows are broken and there are feeders, we will not attach gratings! Firstly, I myself love animals, and secondly, why do I need to bother with television and Greenpeace.
I believed him. The worker and I walked around the house and determined exactly where there should not be bars. Then, for several hours, the hum of drilling was joyful music to me.
Every other day, towards night, a group of pleasant ladies are heatedly discussing something under our windows. I go down and clarify - it turns out that everything is about the same bars. They are collecting signatures and are alarmed. I try to calm you down, tell you about my conversation with the foreman, and the lovely ladies almost cry in response:
- Yes, of course, they will leave holes. But next week the service will arrive, euthanize all the cats and take them to God knows where, or rather, knows where. They charge 3,000 rubles for each cat, and our chairman has already made an advance payment. And then the basement will be completely barred!
- What other service, how will they be put to sleep?!
– This is a private company, without a legal address, we called them, they confirmed that they had received an advance payment.
What to do, do something?
Alexey Zlobin, theater and film director,
resident of the house at Ispytatelev Ave., 11