I live in a townhouse/condo, in a row of 8 nearly identical units, just left of the center of the row (fourth from the left, in other words). It’s a nice unit, brand new when we bought it, the street is quiet enough…but the main reason we live where we do is because it was spacious, affordable, and convenient. We would have preferred our own discrete house but, around here? HAH! You have to be a millionare, practically, to responsibly own a house in greater Boston.
You buy into a condo, you take certain risks. You share one or more walls with your neighbors. You settle disputes in an association of which you are but one member of many. IOW, some aspects of your ownership can be subject to irritatingly democratic forces, and your options are to move out or just deal.
Perhaps until recently, we’ve been very lucky. All our neighbors have been fine, courteous folks, young professionals getting a start in the market like ourselves, the sorts of people you feel fortunate to have around, if you must have someone around.
Then the new chick moved in. We’ll call her Angie. Angie moved into a unit once occupied by two newlywed resident physicians. The marvelous thing about the residents is they may as well have not been there at all. Normally, they either really weren’t at home, or were asleep if they were. It was great. We’d go months without even seeing them, and they barely made a sound. The perfect neighbors in a condo arrangement.
Angie’s a different story. We caught wind she’d had her old house foreclosed on, something to do with a nasty divorce…yet she still drives a shiney new Lexus SUV. She’s from somewheah on the Nawth Shoah, smokes and cusses like a troopah, and has the biggest friggin’ haiah I’ve seen in quite a while. She’s also got these two punk teenage kids who don’t seem to actually live with her, yet are around all the time, partying with their friends and smoking weed in the alley out back. I’m getting a little tired of their fucking obnoxious music through the walls, and the smell of ganga wafting in. One time her kids were out front pounding loudly on the door and screaming “Mom, open the fucking door! MOM! Open the FUCKING DOOR YOU SKANK!” Apparently, Angie was passed-out inside. I stuck my head out my door and gave them my meanest STFU-or-I’m-calling-the-cops routine, but, like all punk-ass little fucking shitstain kids, they weren’t terribly respectful of my righteous indignation.
I may as well face it: We got us some gen-u-ine white trash next door, and our happy neighborhood won’t be quite the same.
The last straw may have been last night. There’s this fat, bald, scary looking fuck Angie appears to be shacking up with, and I think I overheard them going at it. The scary image of Ms. Hairwall doing the nasty with Michael Chiklis’ much uglier and flabbier sibling was disturbing enough, but at what I can only guess was the climax of their passion, I overheard him bellow:
“OH! OH my GOD my ASS! OH MY FUCKING ASS! YEEAH!”
I dunno if I can take a whole lot more of that. That’s some nasty fucking toxic noise polution, my friends, and I’m thinking long and hard about what kind of disinfectant we can use to hose it all away. My guess is some of the neighbors aren’t much happier than I am, if they’re at all aware. Maybe opening up a little can of democratic whoop-ass will serve me better than I’d thought…In the mean time, oy-vey! Perhaps it’s time to start looking at the house listings again…Woe is me.