Oh, this is my favorite. I live in an old Victorian that’s been converted into apartments, and my upstairs neighbor doesn’t feel the need to walk up and down the stairs right outside my apartment (I live on the lower level). No no, he prefers to jump on each and every step, both coming up and down the stairs. He likes to give me my own personal earthquakes numerous times a day.
That, or he weighs approximately 900 pounds. Although I’ve seen him, and unless he carries it extremely well, I think he just likes to jump up and down the stairs like a freakin’ two year old.
Or maybe he’s just being really considerate and making sure I’m awake at 6 am every morning.
I wouldn’t get too excited, Cheeky. My parents bought a house a few years ago and it hasn’t stopped their neighbors from revving the engine of their ancient (and therefore loud as all hell) truck at 5 a.m, banging tools in the bed of said truck at the same time, and yelling to each other at all hours of the day and night.
Doesn’t help that their driveway is right next to my moms bedroom window.
AnimistDragon - GREAT thread. I can relate to many of your points and to go into detail and share my personal stories would be too emotionally draining at this point in my day. Suffice to say…I cannot stand any of the people living in the other 11 apartments in my building!! Rat bastards!
Good thing I’m such a perfect and lovely neighbor.
I lived in a place where the rule was, go to the bars on Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday nights, stay till last call (2am), go to the after party, come back to the apartment above mine at approximately 4 am and turn on MICHAEL JACKSON as loud as it will go (they actually turned the subwoofer toward the floor so it would shake our ceiling, they told us this) and scream WHOOOOOOOOO as loudly as possible.
My job was to wake up to Man in the Mirror or the “Free Willy” song and stumble to the living room, call the police, wait for them to arrive, listen as they pounded on the door for ten minutes until someone heard them, hear music turned down, watch police drive away and then repeat.
The next morning, be sure to dump the ashes from the illegal barbecue grill (wooden deck… fire… smart kids) onto our porch.
We couldn’t call the apartment directors because two of us weren’t on the lease, just paying rent, and that was an evictable offense.
I used to live in the suburbs, where this was mandatory. It sounded like we were being hit with artillery. Since I’ve moved to my complex Atlanta, though, I haven’t had to put up with it yet.
God, this thread makes me glad I’m the upstairs one and everyone ELSE has to listen to me lumbering along. The noise from the apartment next door is enough.
Yeah I can appreciate most of these stories. This is the reason why each month I live frugally and continue driving my 15 year old car so I can save as much money as possible to get out of apartmentland :oD
I certainly worry about the rest of the redneck, white trash here setting fire to the building. I realized this after the building across the street caught fire and burned 3 months ago. I got to feel the heat from the fire in my kitchen. So right after that I decided it would be a good idea to pay the 7 dollars a month for renter’s insurance although I would worry about my poor kitty dying in a fire.
It does seem sometimes like I do have a herd of elephants that are moving furniture above me. I have this light fixture that used to make a clanging noise anytime there is any kind of moment overhead. One day I couldn’t take it and took off the shield that reduces the lamp brightness. My kitchen may be way bright but at least I kept my sanity.
And there is one of the people down the hall who evidently doesn’t like to take their trash to the dumpster but would rather leave it in the hall. And of course I would bitch to the management but they don’t care other than if you’re planning on setting fire to the building or have some life threatening emergency. In fact unless it is an emergency they don’t even return phone calls.
Plus the hall always has discarded wrappers and cigarette butts plus the people who can wait 10 seconds to get outdoors but instead light up right outside their door.
About the only saving grace for the place is it is damn cheap, low crime (although a bit run down and in the middle of nowhere), and generally quiet after 10 or so. And I don’t have to worry about downstairs neighbors because there is a pizza place below me. So I’m going to keep on saving my cash so in 2-3 years I can put a down payment on a house or even a trailer if I require it to save my sanity.
If you are a fifty something year old creepy looking man, be sure to play Superfreak, Hit Me Baby, and Prince’s various songs on repeat for several hours. I enjoy entertaining the mental images of what you are doing in your apartment to such musical accompaniment.
If you need to fight with your partner about details such as who gave who the herpes, please do it outside so that all of us can hear the outcome.
Please continue to let Fluffy poop on my welcome mat. I enjoy walking outside in the morning to find that your sweetie-weetie has left me a happy.
Allow your three year old to run about in the parking lot without supervision. It helps me build defensive driving skills when I never know whose brat will suddenly run out in front of my car.
My apartment complex has a narrow road that runs through it with traffic generally going one way. Of course, we love those rebels who go through the opposite way so that every one else has to back up a couple of hundred feet to alleviate the traffic jam. I also love those massive SUV and truck drivers who don’t bother to pull up anywhere close to the curb so that I can see just how narrow a path I can squeeze my car through.
Feel free to abuse the small recycling bin in the foyer that I put there to use for junk mail and flyers to dispose of your non-recyclable domestic waste. That indeed is what I got it for, and it’s a pleasure to pick through your trash on my knees in the foyer at 10 PM on Sunday night.
Yes, certainly just leave all the junk mail and flyers lying on the foyer floor for me to pick up and put in the recycling bin…I enjoy cleaning up after all you young happy couples; after all, that’s my job as the bitter, single 40-something “old guy” of the building. That and constantly closing the two fire doors that you are propping wide open every day because it’s such an effort to push them open. Never mind this building was built in 1908 and is a tinderbox with little enough to stop a fire racing through here like the freakin’ Triangle Shirtwaist. And don’t think I don’t know that you’re smoking in the hallways, either.
(And yes, it was me who put up the freaky-looking picture of Christopher Walken over the mailbox captioned “Bell Block residents…do not make me tell you again about the recycling of your junk mail!”
Oh yes! Feel free to prop open BOTH front doors. I’ll be sure not to close them again in order to prevent my cats from escaping when I open my door. I’m sure you must have a good reason for leaving them jammed open and then disappearing.
If your apartment has a laundry room, be sure to leave your laundry in the washer for hours on end. Upon finally returning, become belligerent when you see that someone has moved your laundry onto the table.
or, my personal favorite, clip your toe nails in the hall, letting the clippings land where they may. Nothing says class like toe nail clippings!
I am such a nosy neighbor, I LIVE for these fights. It’s the one thing I miss about apartment living. I loves me some good public bickering over intensely personal stuff. Like your own personal Springer show!
When I lived in an apartment building, I used to tape the fights, then replay them for FM morning shows, great fun.
Want to leave your lingerie in the washer for 8 hours? I’ll hang it to dry for you, with notice of who’s it is. After 24 hours (yes, this happened a few times) it goes to the homeless clothes depots.
I live on the 2nd story, too. No upstairs neighbors. This causes me alittle anxiety, since I hate thinking that the folks below me hear my every footstep.
But hell, they’re the ones guilty of waking us up regularly with bass and screaming at each other. I figure my fat cat getting frisky once a day and running across the floor at full speed evens things out.
I forgot about the firecrackers! hehe. I got ysed to every other night or so, hearing a loud BANG! At first, i thought it was gunshots. But no. Started about 2 weeks before 4th of July, lasted until September. Now the air is frighteningly still. Hehe.
*Thank you for smoking so much weed that I can get high simply by walking down the hallway running up and downstairs to do my laundry. It’s saving me tons of money with my not having to buy my own pot!
*I’m glad you love your base in your car. We all love it as well. It’s not enough that the dishes rattle 4 floors up when you drive by it should be knocking pictures off the walls too!
I hate living in apartments but I don’t have much choice. The building I live in has a ton of creepy people though. I regularly run into people… okay guys… who are twice my age and invite me back to their apartment for a little weed and maybe something more wink/leer… ewwww I’m not going back to any apartment with anyone old enough to be my father, indeed aren’t that much younger than my father is.
