I was going to make this its own thread asking WHAT WOULD YOU DO?
This happened yesterday morning to me:
Here's a situation that merits equal opportunity for response. No red or blue, just California citizens.
I have a friend that I have known since eighth grade. He comes from a large family and they have multiple rental properties in the East Bay.
One of the brothers is completely unhinged. About 46. He has drinking and drug addiction issues. He has totaled multiple cars in high-speed accidents. He looks like a disheveled homeless person with meth mouth. He lives at various properties owned by his parents, which are completely mismanaged, most not even rented. They are just disgusting, dirty, full of garbage with immense deferred maintenance. He is violently aggressive in his talk and has no regard for other people that I can tell.
Chapter 1
I found myself at one of their apartment buildings in Berkeley with him a couple of years ago. He was asking me to help him remove some loose roof tiles from the three-story building by holding onto him with a strong hand grip or tying him off with a random rope and lower him down. His plan was to knock the tiles down to the concrete sidewalk below.
I told him that there was no way I was going to take part in this unsafe plan. Seeing that I was not going to help, he went into one of the apartments and grabbed whatever barricades he could to stop pedestrians from walking the sidewalk below. He then took a long stick with him up to the roof and proceeded to knock terra-cotta tiles off, sending them crashing below. During this time he was bragging to me about how he would kill people who messed with him, and he was occasionally yelling at random passersby, scaring them for no reason.
A third brother had put him up to this, so I contacted him and told him how unsafe this was, and if anything should happen to his Brother such as falling off of the roof or injury to somebody walking by, he himself would be liable for his dangerous instructions as the building manager.
The third brother ended up telling all the rest of the siblings and they all ganged up on my friend for including me in family business. Typical, right?
Chapter 2
10 days ago, I got a call from my friend in Utah saying that the crazy brother has asked him to come out again in order to help with another property. He says in a begging kind of way, "do it for the family". I tell my friend that since he only has five days, he should fly instead of drive.
A couple of days later, I got a call from him and says that he is in town, that he ended up driving, but that he and crazy brother were arguing so much that it was a bad decision to come and he wants to Return ASAP. I tell him to come to my house where he can sleep and drive back without falling asleep driving across the desert.
So he comes to my house and we spend 24 hours together so that he can calm down and rest up. He ends up telling me how crazy Brother threw a brick at his car, said that he was going to kill himself. "People better watch out I'm taking people with me." Further, he said something about taking out his estranged six-year-old son in LA. We discuss how my brother died from addiction issues two years ago, comparing notes again as we have over the years, and how this is very disturbing. My friend tells me how his brother has a gun, something that never would've been the case with my brother.
But, we do nothing and my friend returns to Utah in a much better mood.
Chapter 3
I received a call this morning from my friend. He had called his crazy brother to check in on him. The man was on a bus or a train returning from LA. He said goodbye to his brother, my friend, that he's going to end his life, as there is nothing left for him in this one. The conversation is short and the crazy brother hangs up abruptly. Click.
There is more, but I'll stop there and allow you to respond. What do you do? Stick your nose into other people's business?
