Causing disorder in the neighborhood

One of the outfits we are displaying at the new museum is a jacket worn by local TV icon JP Patches. All we have is the jacket, but the designers want the mannequin to be fully dressed, which means I have to create or track down prop pieces to complete the look. I really wanted a red and white clown tie like in the picture, so I purchased this great fabric (from the Dr. Seuss fabric line--no joke) and sewed a prop tie. When I put it together though, it looked wrong because the jacket is worn and faded and the tie looks brand new. So I set to work "distressing" the tie to make it look older.

My education taught me a lot about how NOT to treat fabric, so I figured that all I had to do was the opposite. First I washed it in super hot water using a detergent that contained bleach. When that didn't do much I decided to just hang it up in my window so it could get some light damage.

I chuckled a little bit about how it would look to people who might glance at my window from the street. To me it looked a little like a scarecrow, or like some sort of mysterious or creepy message I was sending to a person in the apartment across the street.

It was up for about a week when an apartment-wide notice went out, reminding all residents of a few rental agreement rules, including:

"No tenant shay display any decor (curtains, art, stickers, etc.) on windows or doors that are visible to the public."

Wa wah. I guess no one likes clown ties.