If you decided to someday move into my apartment building, please follow these rules I set down for you. It will make your transition into the society which is this building that much easier, as you will be just like every other person who lives here.
Find out your neighbours’ working schedules. This can be done by observing when their car is gone. Then, when you know they’re home and sleeping, turn the bass on your stereo ALL THE WAY UP and play Rap. This will work as an alarm clock for the rest of us. No one needs more than three hours of sleep a day, no matter what they might tell you.
Place your bed next to wall where they spend most of their time. If they have their computer in the living room, place your headboard squarely on the opposite side of the wall. Proceed to have sex for at least an hour, and slam that headboard as hard as you can. We cheer for your sexual prowess the entire time, regardless of what movie we may be trying to watch.
When moving across the communal balcony on the second floor, encourage your children to run as hard as they can. This tests the structural integrity of the building.
Speaking of children, it is perfectly acceptable, if not encouraged, for them to test the strength of the balcony at 2 or even 3 in the morning. No need to worry about the drunks out there smoking! They act as babysitters.
Or, if you’re a drinker, please do all your drinking outside. It lets everyone know where the party is tonight. Don’t forget to offer alcohol to everyone who passes you! Speak loudly, so even if we don’t think we need to leave the apartment tonight, we’ll still know the party’s on the other end of the building. And to keep your apartment clean, vomit into the grass and leave your beer bottles and cigarrette butts outside. Children find these to be intruiging playthings.
If you’re upset with a neighbor, pee on their car. There’s no need for direct confrontation.
Everyone is intensly interested in the arguements you have with the person you’re living with. So, to make it easier for us all to hear you, scream at each other as loudly as possibly. That way, we don’t need to put our ears against the wall/floor of our apartment.
Since the children have the balcony strength covered, you need to test the strength of your own floors. Repetedly throughout the day, jump off your couch, run across the room, and drop a bowling ball. Repeat for each room.
When heating your car at 4am, please remember that we all desire to know what kind of music you listen to. But remember: this is winter, so most people have their windows closed. Make sure you can hear your music from inside your own apartment before going inside to eat breakfast.
The reccomended time for hanging pictures with a nail is 3am. Make note of this.
Mufflers are unneccesary.
Whoever made the speed limit signs is dyslectic. Thus, the speed limit is 51, not 15. The speed bumps are actually launching ramps.
Thank you for your time. Please print out a copy of this for your files.
The complex issues statements like, “Please watch your children” and “the speed limit while in the coplex is 15mph” almost every month since I’ve lived here (I moved in in June). Effective? Apparently not.
That big square green metal thing? It’s called a dumpster. You can put your trash in it, but as long as you throw your trash bags in the general direction of it, that’s cool, too. It doesn’t actually have to land in the dumpster. The maintenance men just love picking up the broken-open bags of trash.
When doing laundry, feel free to use all the machines at once. It’s not like anyone else might need to use them.
Another rule: if you’re moving in or out of a high-rise, make sure you jam something in the doors of each and every elevator in the building to hold them for you. Doing so for anything less than 6 hours is unacceptable. Just because the building manager will give you the key to only one of the elevators doesn’t mean that you should have to be inconvenienced in any way.
Hey, AnimistDragon, which complex is this? Sounds like it’s near the campus.
I remember hearing wonderful stories about things that would go on at Knollwood–people dumping couches in the garbage dumpsters and lighting the whole kit’n’kaboodle on fire. That kinda thing.
Personally, I live in a complex in Portage where things are much more sane…
When returning from the bar, a party, whatever, at 2am, be sure to yak loudly with your friends about the good time you had and how funny it was when Joe Cool staggered out on the dance floor drunk and tripped and caught Betty’s NEW SKIRT and ripped it to her ANKLES, right there in front of EVERYONE, OMG, and she was SO EMBARRASSED, and on and on and on. Accompany this with loud raucous laughter and make sure it’s all at a volume that ensures not one tenant will miss a single detail. I mean, all they’re doing is sleeping, and, honestly, how boring is THAT? Oh, and don’t forget to stomp up the stairs and slam your doors, just in case, so no one will have to worry that you didn’t make it home safe and sound.
I’ve heard stories about the Student Ghetto from a friend. Like setting matresses on fire in the front lawn. Or a car in the middle of the street on Saturday. Good times!
Here’s one: Make sure to brag to all your friends about how much higher your rent payment is than a single family house mortgage payment (with taxes escrowed). After all, renting is a prestige lifestyle and only suckers build up equity in those loser-ville 'burbs.
Be sure to stuff boxes in the trash chute, directly below the sign that says “DO NOT PUT BOXES IN CHUTE”. Extra points for jamming it up on Friday evening, so everyone in the building can enjoy the pleasure of traipsing to the basement for three days.
Good times, indeed. I recall one time when some guy got shot in my parking lot in the middle of the night. I used to think of police car lights as nightlights…of course, that wasn’t in a complex–that was in the student ghetto up near downtown. I hear Knollwood is actually worse.
I’m kinda glad I chose to move into Walnut Trail like I did–Maple Ridge was one of the places I looked at during my last move. Walnut Trail is actually rather quiet and laid back. I’ve had a few annoying neighbors, but nothing too bad.
Happily, we don’t get too many cops out this way. Or mabye unfortunatly. Maybe the peeing-on-cars and scream-at-your-roomie things would taper off.
I don’t remember Walnut Trail, but I don’t know everything about Portage yet. Only lived here for about a year and a half, after moving out of Three Rivers at 14, then living in Tx for 5 years. I like the rent here, and I love the view of forest out of my bedroom window. The post is exagerration of things that have annoyed me for comic effect. It’s all happened, but not on a daily basis or anything. Hehe. Just clumped together the last 6 months. But it was annoying when it happened!
We should go to Fourth Coast and chat some time. Hehe.
(Adding some from my days as an apartment dweller/condo owner)
We all know that Independence Day begins in May. Please purchase the loudest fireworks available and set them off around 1am. It’s darkest then, and they bang the loudest then. You are required also to be fairly schnockered, as a lubrication to coerce you to yell “Oh SHIT LOOKIT THAT MOTHERFUCKER” as loud as possible. You are required to do this at least once during the week and/or every other weekend until the beginning of August.
As a perk of living in this building, you will no longer require babysitters/daycare. The mantra “It takes a village to raise a child” truly does apply here! If you need to go to the bar/score a bag/go grocery shopping, feel free to leave your children in the hallways. Another tennant will truly enjoy watching you child(ren) until you decide to return- be it in 30 minutes, or overnight.
Garage schmage. Most tennants just use them for storage, so we welcome you to park in front of any garage. If the owner of the garage should need to leave, take your time responding (if at all). Our tennants that are too lazy to park in the lot on the other side of the complex but rather use their garages right next to the entrance need exercise anyways.
Make absolutely certain that you simply leave your bags of trash outside your door on the second floor. I know we have a dumpster not thirty feet away, but really; if -you- don’t attract rodents into the appartment complex, who will?
(shudder)
I am -so- glad I moved out of that place. I -love- my current appartment.
Please note: Whenever someone vacates, management will schedule to have the carpet replaced at 6 a.m. There will be plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead.
(Know how noisy carpet-laying is, from the apartment below?)
Anecdote: I lived on the ground floor in my last apartment. (I now own a house, partially because of this story, among others.) One day some people moved in upstairs, who, I swear, owned a large herd of water buffalo.
I could track the movement of each buffalo in their apartment by the thumping noises in my ceiling. It was excessively annoying. One day, I spotted the girl upstairs come outside, carrying two little bitty brown things. And I realized I couldn’t hear anything – she was taking her water buffalo out of the apartment with her. As she got down to the bottom of the stairs, I peeked out my window to see if they were Rottweilers, Bull Mastiffs, Great Danes or what.
Two Chihuahuas. Couldn’t have weighed more than 3 pounds each.
I collapsed in laughter on the couch. Who knew such little bitty dogs could make so much noise just trotting around the house? And that, my fellow Dopers, made me realize not only how poorly insulated my building was, but how thin the floors/ceilings were. Couldn’t have been more than 1/2" of plywood between each apartment. I’m convinced that the entire complex was slapped up in a weekend, with a keg of beer, by a half dozen or so Bubbas.
After water started draining down through my ceiling vents, I started looking for a house.
As a fellow Kalamazoo-er, I would like to add to your list:
If you live downtown on a small private street, you should drive down it as quickly as possible at all times.
Also, whenever possible you should park in the street, obstructing all traffic. If you hear someone honking while you’re parked there, ignore it. It’s not like they’re honking to get you to come out and move your car or anything.
Please ensure that your car alarm is set to go off at least three times every night.
If you have friends or relatives who enjoy writing poetry, but it’s too awful for them to read in public, please invite them over to read it, loudly, directly below the vent to the unit above. This works best if the occupant of the above unit is stuck in bed with a miserable flu.
