Bullying knows no age in Attleboro

It happens a lot these days. They harass and ostracize their victims – peers usually – sometimes even driving them to suicide.

Tragic tales of verbal torture have blared from newspapers, coast to coast.

But peers aren’t their only targets. Sometimes teens afflict their elders, such as the highly publicized case of a 68-year-old school bus monitor in upstate New York who tearfully endured the curses and insults of a group of young thugs who ganged up on her verbally during a bus ride home last month.

It turns out, though, that teens have not cornered the market on cruelty and verbal violence.

The elderly can and do wreak their own emotional havoc on people their own age, and younger.

It’s a phenomenon being documented more and more in elderly housing complexes around the country. Stories have appeared in national newspapers, such as the New York Times and nearby regional and local papers like the MetroWest Daily News and the Lynn Item.

And now, it’s Attleboro’s turn.

Bullies and their victims have been at war in Gardner Terrace on Pine Street for almost a year.

In this case, the bullies are 70- or 80-somethings who intimidate and isolate younger, disabled people with whom they share the 144-unit complex, a privately owned and federally subsidized, low-income building at 46 Pine St.

“They say the nastiest, meanest things,” said a disabled woman who didn’t want her name used because she fears retaliation. “One was screaming and yelling, calling me a *******. She wouldn’t let me get out of the laundry room.

“We keep hearing they don’t want us here because we’re young and disabled. They’ve tried to get people evicted and some of us have been to court. We’re desperate – and we didn’t do anything.”

She and several others have lived fear-filled lives under the thumb of a dozen or so aging antagonists for at least a year, she said.

They curse at her and others because they are “too slow” or because they “monopolize” the laundry room or are “trying to steal someone’s boyfriend,” she said.

She said a couple of the bullies are men, but most are women – mean girls grown old.

The harassment poisons the atmosphere for all residents, most of whom aren’t bullies.

One woman who recently moved in and is not among the group being bullied is ready to move out, said a city worker who’s been part of an intense multiagency effort to calm the corrosive conduct at Gardner Terrace.

The atmosphere is more than unpleasant, it’s downright scary, even for people not involved, said council on aging outreach worker Kathy Levin.

“She hasn’t been there that long, but she’s already applied to go somewhere else,” Levin said of the woman who wants pack up and leave. “She’s picked up on the hostility.”

Seniors bullying seniors is not new, but it’s been under the radar, even for those who work with seniors as a profession.

Council on Aging Director Madeleine McNielly has worked with seniors for decades and has witnessed and dealt with bad behavior.

In fact, the city’s council on aging was forced to implement a “code of conduct” when oldsters acting out at the Rev. Larson Senior Center on South Main Street became an issue in 2005.

That document doesn’t use the word “bully,” but the behavior is similar.

The rude and crude get three chances to clean up their act. If they don’t, they’re banned.

“Our policy is three strikes and you’re out,” McNeilly said. “It’s unfortunate, but we’ve had to use it. It hurts to have to do that, but there’re some people who are clearly disruptive.”

Nonetheless, the situation at Gardner Terrace caught even McNielly off guard.

“I was actually surprised when I heard about the issues (they) were dealing with,” she said. “The word ‘bullying’ didn’t resonate. I couldn’t imagine people (of that age) could stoop so low. I admit, I’ve learned some lessons.”

City social worker June Fleischmann, a leader in the effort to stem the bullying, said the behavior stuns many.

“It doesn’t make any sense to us that people this age just don’t get along,” she said.

Whispers, pointing, hateful glances and snickering are everywhere – at mailboxes, in the laundry room, in the halls – tearing away at the already hard lives of everyone who lives there, officials said.

All residents have limited income and some are mentally or physically disabled. Every one of them would probably rather be in a private home, but that’s not what life has dealt them.

Fleischmann said the declining status in life among the elderly, including loss of income, homes, family and abilities, sometimes spurs anger and an effort to dominate and to control what little they have left to control, and they become bullies.

Then again, sometimes people are just born mean and stay that way.

The disabled are especially vulnerable.

They’re working to overcome their own limitations, and the last thing they need is to be targeted for abuse, officials said.

Fighting back seems to enrage the bullies, said the disabled woman who spoke to The Sun Chronicle.

She said they lodge complaints with management and try to have them evicted for alleged infractions.

The attacks, which are nothing less than verbal violence, make a hard life harder, officials said.

“People don’t realize how much words hurt,” Fleischmann said. “It’s very, very painful and very debilitating.”

The bad behavior among seniors nationwide is sparking special attention in the news, in reports about the lives of the elderly and in the training of social workers who are attending seminars on how to deal with what seems to be a growing problem.

And in Attleboro, agencies including the health department, the council on aging, the police department, the courts, the city’s Council on Human Rights and U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern’s office have all been working to calm the abuse.

Fleischmann credited Lisa Nelson from McGovern’s office for organizing an important sit down of all major players recently to work out a plan to deal with the problem, which includes the adoption of an anti-bullying policy by Gardner Terrace management and the hiring of a “resident coordinator” who’s main job is to keep the peace.

Meanwhile, reports are being published laying out the characteristics of seniors who bully.

One of those, published online by Lauren Searson in the Guide to Retirement Living Sourcebook, said that experts estimate that 10 percent to 20 percent of seniors have experienced senior-on-senior aggression in institutional settings.

Women and men are equally likely to be the victim or the aggressor, according to her article.

Women tend to be “passive-aggressive,” bullies, by gossiping and whispering about people in their presence, while men tend to be more confrontational, Searson said.

Intervention is the key to stopping it, according to the article.

McNeilly agreed forceful action is crucial to keep situations from getting out of hand.

“If you can intervene immediately, you can resolve it quicker,” she said. “The key is that there’s a policy and that people know what the boundaries are and what the consequences are.”

One of the problems at Gardner Terrace was that there was little onsite management, no one trained to deal with bullying issues and no bullying policy, so no one intervened.

Those circumstances combined with some angry seniors and vulnerable disabled residents made for an explosive situation.

Council on aging outreach worker Melissa Tucker described it as a “perfect storm.”

S-C management Corp., which runs Gardner Terrace for owner Brown Street Associates, is working to remedy the problem by adopting an anti-bullying policy and by hiring a resident coordinator who’s scheduled to start work later this month.

The company got a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to pay for the job.

Part of the job description for the new employee is to “develop a sense of fellowship and community among residents” and to “resolve individual as well as group conflicts.”

McNielly said having someone in place to take action quickly is important, but the person will need to know what they are doing.

“If they get the right person for this job, it will really make a difference,” she said.

While officials believe the establishment of an anti-bullying policy and the hiring of a resident coordinator will help calm the corridors of Gardner Terrace and bring peace to the picked upon, the picked upon aren’t so confident.

“It’s good they got a policy together, but I don’t know whether it will stick,” said one of the victims. “(The bullies) are already saying they don’t care, and that nobody is going to tell them what to do.”