When the scaffolding outside my new place was finally removed, someone started drilling in the flat upstairs. But not their walls – their floors. In other words, my ceiling.
As soon as that work had been finished, I started noticing that I was becoming very forgetful, much more than I’d ever been before. Where did I put my keys, my wallet, even my clothes? And why did my flat always smell of smoke now?
In fact, that smell was never there when I entered my bedroom, living room or the bathroom or kitchen. However, once I’d spent a moment in any of those rooms, it started to appear.
Then, one day, I noticed that someone outside my building was watching my flat with a pair of big binoculars. I was dumbstruck and terrified. Did they do this all the time? But even if they did – they also seemed to be aware whenever I was in my bathroom, which didn’t have a window. How did they know that I was there?
I realised that they must have been using thermal imaging technology because they always knew exactly where in my flat I was, even when I’d drawn the curtains. They were clearly tracking all my movements and pinpointing where I went. And suddenly, just moments after I’d entered, say, the bedroom, there would be this strong smell, a heavy substance filling my nostrils and then my mouth. My teeth would become sticky, like I had dust in my mouth. And within moments, I would start feeling unwell.
I’d get stomach cramp and kidney pain, while my blood pressure would become very high as my heart beat very fast. Within a minute, I’d have an enormous headache. It felt like something was pressing and pushing inside my brain, as though I was very close to having a stroke.
Feeling extremely weak and scared to death, I would lay down on the sofa or my bed, but that didn’t help. When my condition did eventually improve, I would take a look in the mirror in the bathroom and be shocked by my appearance. Invariably, my face had turned red, as if I had a massive rash, and at times, it was even swollen.
So, I realised what that smell in my flat was: nerve gas, which, it seemed, was released into my home from the neighbours upstairs. Such gases can cause lung cancer, kidney disease, liver or pancreatic cancer, as well as heart disease or stroke. Clearly, whoever was doing this to me was becoming more and more ruthless and out of control.
I got the sense that they were releasing different gases on different days as the symptoms wouldn’t always be the same. Sometimes, I simply felt dizzy and very tired, as well as confused to the point that I wouldn’t even remember where my computer was. Or, to give another example, I’d go into the kitchen, but once I got there, I’d forgotten what I’d intended to do.
Increasingly, I also got the impression that whoever was doing all this didn’t just release gas into my flat, but they must have also entered it when I was at work, when they would poison, for instance, my toothbrush and coffee mugs. Because I would make myself a cup of coffee in the morning, and within a minute or two, I’d feel violently ill. I suspect that they even put substances on my socks and shoes because my feet would look swollen even after I’d worn them only for a brief time.
Did the perpetrators have a key to my flat? Because there were never any signs of break-in. Yet every day, these things would happen.
Who was doing this? The mafia? The government? Which one? The one in Tbilisi, or the one in Westminster?
As well as the physical harm, they were torturing me mentally by entering my home. It seemed like they were conducting experiments on me, as if I was some kind of guinea pig who they tried to kill through torture. I was in despair, and at times, I even felt suicidal because I got the sense that they would not stop until I was dead. If my diet hadn’t been so healthy, I probably would have been dead already.
But I didn’t know how long I would be able to hold on as I was breathing in those gases every single day. So, this criminal activity couldn’t continue.
The UK prides itself on being one of the leading democracies in the world, and I needed help from the British authorities now. I started to feel as if somebody had named me as the most wanted or most dangerous man in Britain, even though I was just an ordinary citizen. But if it was simply a case of mistaken identity, the police should be able to help me and get to the bottom of this quickly.