↓ Evelyn’s Response
Rosalind, the detail about the paint is the one that matters most here, and I am glad you included it. A specific shade chosen from a chart, matched correctly — that is not accident. That is research. Whatever is behind that door has been watching your flat for some time, possibly longer than you have lived in it, and has taken considerable care to be unobtrusive. In my experience, and I appreciate how unusual it is to have experience with this, entities that go to the trouble of matching the Farrow and Ball are not the sort to cause disruption. The effort alone suggests a preference for coexistence over confrontation.
My first piece of advice is this: do not open the door. I know that will feel counterintuitive — you are a librarian, you are trained toward organisation and access and the correct cataloguing of things, and a filing system you cannot consult will nag at you. I understand. But the door was painted to be invisible, which means they were not expecting to be found, and surprising a bureaucratic entity mid-filing is the sort of thing that leads to complications I would rather not see you navigate. Instead, make yourself a known and unthreatening quantity. Speak normally in your living room. Perhaps mention, aloud and without making a production of it, that you work with documents professionally. Common ground is common ground, regardless of the scale of the parties involved.
