They don’t love Lucy!
Residents of a Queens co-op are battling a 10-month-old basset hound named Lucy in a bizarre dogfight that includes nasty notes, suspicious liquids and “booby traps” worthy of an Agatha Christie murder mystery.
“Every time I open that door, I wonder, ‘What’s next?’ ” the beast’s besieged owner, Cory McPherson, told The Post from his Woodside apartment, where he and Lucy now live in fear.
The fur began to fly in April when McPherson, 44, says his doormat was suddenly despoiled with some sort of mysterious chemical.
“It sort of smelled like cinnamon,” he recalled.
About a week later, a series of notes began to appear — one polite, the rest ominous.
“Your dog barks all day long, loudly and without end,” one said. “I have to turn up the music to drown out the barking, but I don’t necessarily want that. I want some peace and quiet in my own home.”
Another missive growled: “Get out now McPherson. Nobody likes you or your loud dog!”
McPherson was so scared he installed a tiny black surveillance camera outside his apartment. So far, it hasn’t revealed the hound hater.
Shortly after installing the camera, someone unleashed another warning: “I will get you out of here!! Nobody likes you or your dog!!! The cam will NOT stop me!!!!”
Next came the “traps” — including a “slippery substance” McPherson said was strategically poured at the foot of the fifth-floor staircase just outside his 52nd Street apartment, perhaps part of a plot to send both he and
the sad-eyed pooch to the little doghouse in the sky.
On another day, an unknown red powder was scattered in the fifth-floor hallway, he added.
“It’s never happened until all this started happening [with Lucy],” McPherson said, adding he’s tried to be accommodating, installing noise-insulation panels near his front door.
Longtime tenant James Fox said he’s complained about Lucy’s baying, which he says can stretch from 12:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.
“I had a few words with him,” the retired NYPD detective said. “It’s a very loud bark . . . not some whimpering puppy.”
But Fox claimed ignorance about notes, potions or powders.
“There’s no reason for notes,” Fox said. “But he [McPherson] has a big mouth. And I don’t like people with big mouths.”
The building’s management company, 51ST-52ND Tenants Corp., says it’s investigating.