[quote=“brujaja, post:19, topic:514440”]
LionelHutz405, you are right. I live in California, and have never had to shovel snow. I can only imagine what a pain that must be. How do people avoid slipping and falling all the time, anyway? I’ve always wondered.
You walk like a duck. At least I do anyway. 
When we had a condo, the $150/month covered: yard care, snow removal, building maintenance (like the 3AM emergancy furnace repair and replacing the roof), insurance on the building (we had to get the equivalent of renters insurance for our stuff), trash removal, heating (there was a common boiler), water (hot and cold), maintaining the tennis courts, the community excercise room, repaving the driveway/parking lot.
We got a house because we could get way more space for our money, at least in the price range we were looking for - for the price of a smallish 2 bdrm condo, we got 1500 sq ft of 3 bdrm house (not counting the finished basement, which is another 500 sq ft).
Sure, we have to wake up early to shovel when it snows, and in the summer it seems like we end up spending every other Saturday grubbing about in the garden, and we’ve had to deal with all sorts of home repairs that wouldn’t have been an issue with a condo (furnaces, drain pipes, gutters, roof, etc). Still, it’s totally been worth it to have a bedroom bigger than a shoebox and a kitchen big enough for more than one person to cook in.
We don’t. Lots of people slip and fall on ice or snow.
Not **all **of the responsibilities–no yard maintenence, no shoveling (especially important here in Milwaukee), no upkeep on the exterior of the house (from the siding/paint to the roof and beyond). You generally also get extra facilities and amenities–e.g., someone to accept your packages while you’re at work or otherwise out of the house, exercise equipment, etc.
There’s a certain trick to walking on icy surfaces–you kind of tense your joints up, especially your knees. If you do it often enough, you don’t even think about it–it just happens automatically when you step on a dark patch or something that doesn’t “feel” like it has the right amount of traction underfoot. The right footwear helps, as does going slowly and sometimes using your arms to help balance.
Headphones are your late night friend.
I used to work nights. Could be up at 4am watching movies, blowing my ears out on the volume on my headphones and not bother the neighbors.
But I didn’t have anyone below me to be bothered by all the walking around.
Different strokes for different folks - I’ve lived in every type of apartment, a townhouse, rented a house, and now we are owning a single family house - I love having our own house. Yardwork rarely seems onerous - it’s just what you do. Housework, on the other hand…
This, pretty much. At our first house we had neighbors on each side, and their exterior walls were about 20’ from ours. You could stand in the backyard of the first house on the block and pretty much see across about 10 properties to the backyard at the house at the other end of the block. That was waaaay too much togetherness.
Now, we’re on a cul-de-sac and only have a neighbor on one side, but about 30’ of natural growth separating our yards. The rest of the backyard is bordered by woods, and the house across the street is pretty far away. I could walk around the backyard naked, day or night, and nobody would be able to see. It’s awesome.
No doubt. I have a set of headphones but they’re not great. My speaker system, on the other hand, is.
If I could find a really nice set of wireless headphones I’d be in heaven (as, I’m sure, would be my neighbors)
I used to live in a house, but now live in an apartment.
I never thought that I’d say this but now I actively miss “yardwork” as you 'Mercans say, or gardening as us civilised folk prefer.
Geez, the association fees for the townhouse we lived in was something like $350 a month when we moved out in 2007. Well, actually, it was $325; four months later, they raised it to $350. When we moved in, it was a mere $200, then rapidly changed to $220. It stayed that for about four years, then kept jumping up.
The fees covered a lot, though: the pool, the common area (it was a really nice park-like setting, with a jogging path, streams and a pond, a rec room, etc.), the many trees, and various necessary improvements/repairs, like the roof, painting, and garage doors.
Still, $350 was steep. I much prefer having a house now. I miss my neighbors, but not the HOA. There were several older folks who I swear all but spied out their windows with binoculars.
My new neighborhood rules, and the backyard is perfect for our little Rufflings. All we had in the townhome complex was a cemented patio, and no big toys (swings sets and the like) were permitted.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but 8 or 9 pm would be more appropriate for noise abatement. At best you’re annoying someone trying to experience the joys of homework.
You’re absolutely a normal guy who enjoys loud music. I still like it at age 51 and don’t see that changing. You’re also a good neighbor. I think this is a good excuse to go out and buy the best !#@% headphones on the market.
The construction in your condos must be quite bad - I NEVER hear my neighbours when playing music or whatever (unless we both have our doors open)
I do occassionally hear my upstairs neighbour, but only if they actually bang something on the floor, never in day to day living or anything.
The most annoying thing is when somebody in an opposit block has an argument - that we can hear (until we close the windows)
I always thought of ‘gardening’ as specifically tending a vegetable or flower garden, whereas ‘yardwork’ was mowing the lawn, raking, fertilizing, trimming the edges, etc. ‘Gardening’ is a subset of ‘yardwork’.