When neighbours go arseholes.

The BBQ Pit
1

This is an inane pitting meant solely to vent frustrations. You have been warned. If you expect rational argument and reasonable indignation, fuck off you cunt !

Anyway.

So here I am, bags of groceries in hand, in front of my own appartment door, *sans *key. Again. In my defense, my fucking girlfriend is inside - she just fell asleep between me leaving and me coming back. When she knows I never take the keys if I don’t need to. When she prompted me to go out and do the groceries. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFF… but that’s not the point.

The point is, there I am. In the fucking hall. Ringing my own absurdly loud doorbell over and over again, praying I don’t disturb the *other *tenants while I’m trying to wake my hibernating SO. 10 minutes of constant DING DONGing pass. My fucking cellphone is fucking inside too. OK, so plan A failed. Plan B is doomed to failure : the concierge isn’t there on WEs, no hope of getting the spare key he keeps without committing B&E. I *do *consider B&E for a second, before figuring it’s more trouble than it’s worth. Fuck fuck fuckity fuck fuck FUCK.

Swallowing my shyness, I ring the right door neighbour - last time this happened, back when I lived alone, she was gracious enough to let me balcony-hop. I gave her a homemade cake in return. We smiled and joked around a bit. Ambiguity. Friendliness at least. But today, no answer (and she’s moved out some time ago anyway, I think. It’s been a while since last I saw her). Left door neighbour ? Not there either. Finally, I ring the folks at the end of the corridor - retired folks. They’re always home, always say hello, and seem nice. Hope dawns on this sinner. Grandma opens the door - I’m saved !

“I’m sorry to bother you ma’am, but I seem to be locked outside. Could I use your balcony to reach my flat ? I always leave the bathroom window open.”
“Oh, no !”
“Thank y… wait, what ?!”
“If you fall down, you’ll kill yourself ! We don’t want trouble.”
(Inner thought : “… I’m not going to fall down. I’m a rock climber. I know the whole one limb at a time thing. It’s a balcony, with lots of holds, not a citadel wall. Besides, should I ever fall down, I’ll fall onto the lower floor balconies, which jut out far beyond ours. At worst, I’ll spray an ankle and have some embarassed explaining to do.”)
Real speech : “Oh… well, thanks anyway. Good evening to you.”

So I’m back ringing the fucking doorbell. What else am I gonna do ?

Pitting thought : So I’m a wuss. I accept that. Still, FUCK, **YOU **! So what if I fucking kill myself ?! It’s my fucking decision ! I took the fucking risk ! Should I fucking sleep in the hall for the night 'cause it’s safer for you, you fossilized turd ? You fucking know me, I see you every other day. I’m not a fucking burglar, you *know *that. I’m not on drugs, I’m not drunk. There’s no fucking excuse for your bogus concern. What the *fuck *is wrong with you ?!

2

Your place doesn’t have a phone? One that your GF might wake up when it rings?

C’mon! Old people are scared of shit like that. They wouldn’t even want to know somebody else is taking a risk.

The old lady wasn’t being mean she was just plain scared and concerned for your welfare.

Seems kind of stupid that you are pitting somebody for caring about your welfare while the GF doesn’t care enough about you to stay awake for a few minutes.

3

… so you’re posting this from where?

Since both neighbors aren’t home then you can kick it up a notch and make some real noise. Put some dents in that door. If you’re not too many floors up, how’z about tossing pebbles against a window? If pebbles don’t do the trick, work your way up til you break a window. That’s a whole lot cheaper than breaking a door. Just make sure you’ve got the right window.

Or call a locksmith. Tell the guy your sad story and verify your address, and it should take him about 10 minutes and $100 to jimmy open your door. Then wake up the girlfriend and make her pay for it. And next time bring your frikkin key!

4

I think i see a solution to your problem.

5

Nope - the landline exists (for internet purposes), but a few years ago I unhooked the phone because of all the fucking telemarketers. Everyone I know and every employer calls me on my cell anyway.

… Fuck off you cunt ! :smiley:

(besides, I’m 28. I have a beard and everything. My welfare is my own goddamn business.)

From home. Eventually, GF emerged from her slumber. She did have the common decency of not giving me shit for waking her up even though I barked at her, I’ll give her that, :).

And I didn’t want to make too much noise even though the side neighbours weren’t there because there are upstairs and downstairs neighbours. The downstair guy already complained a few times when I played a rockband plastic drumset, so I stopped - and I didn’t want to give him a new reason to bitch.

I did consider bashing the door in, but it’s a reinforced door, I’m a bony geek, and frankly, I didn’t want to deal with the hassle of getting a new door/hinge/lock/whatever on top of not wanting to dislocate a shoulder.

I live on the 7th floor, and never played baseball, so pebbles or wall climbing… yeah. Besides, pebbles wouldn’t really do the trick if the doorbell doesn’t. That thing is LOUD, I swear to Og. Think church bells, and it’s a single room appartment, too. In retrospect, I admit I could have tried ringing the downstairs interphone, which is even louder. Like air attack siren shriek loud. I’ll keep that in mind for next time.

@mhendo : … shut up ! :stuck_out_tongue:

6

How awful it must be, having so many other people making things difficult for you.

7

Seriously, I’m with the little old lady. A few weeks ago, a newlywed woman here in Victoria locked herself out of her new apartment in a high-rise, went through neighbour’s suite, intending to go from balcony to balcony, as she was an experienced climber (or something athletic involving heights). Newlywed, and now dead. Fell. Splat. Stupid and sad.

Take your keys and phone, don’t balcony it. (And this is advice from someone who’s so good at locking herself out of her car she keeps a spare key in her bra. Daily.)

8

I somewhat agree, but our balconies aren’t separated by a great big void. It’s a single balcony, running around the whole building, with chest-high pannels delimiting who owns what. And while I planned (and in the past, did) to go around them rather than above, like I said the lower level terrace juts out like 2 or 3 meters further. The whole building is sort of pyramid shaped, with each level overlooking the lower level. I certainly wouldn’t dare jumping from one window to another or something like that - I’m a geek, not Spiderman :). Remember, I’m a wuss. That’s also true when assessing personnal risk.

That being said, now that I’ve cooled down a bit, I’m not that angry at them anymore (although the “we don’t want no trouble” bit still itches. It feels less like “we don’t want you to hurt yourself”, and more “we don’t want to deal with the paperwork/police if you do”, y’know ?). I just felt like screaming in a vacuum. Which I did.

9

Maybe next time you’ll think twice before leaving the house without a pair of scissors, a balloon, a straw and a film canister, buster. Sheesh!

10

Oh please. That’s so embarassingly low-tech :smiley:

11

How would having your cell phone with you have helped?

12

This is remarkably uninteresting. Yet, in a deeper and larger sense, it intrigues me.

‘Arseholes’ is a British type word and much more revolting (for reasons that I cannot for the life of me explain) than ‘assholes’.

‘Cellphone’ is an American term.

What are you?

13

Seems like an arsehole.

14

There you go Kobal2 - just hide a spare key in Savannah’s bra :stuck_out_tongue:

15

This. Also, with the cell phone in the house, why not use old lady’s phone to call your cell?

16

I think the neighbor lied to you. She was actually in the sack with Grandpa.

17

I could have phoned my parents, who have a key. And before you ask, I couldn’t have used the old lady’s phone to call 'em, as I don’t know their number by heart.

@Aquila Be : French. So, yeah, arsehole :).

@Don’t call me Shirley : hadn’t thought of that to tell you the truth.

18

I’m with Kobal2 on this one.

My arsehole neighbours *deliberately *built a deck in their back garden *just *so they could look into my lounge window, not because it’s the current fashion at all - I will *not *put up net curtains, I’ll just make obscene hand gestures whenever I see them until the hedge plants grow and block out their sun forever - bwahahaha!
That’ll show them! Bastards.

19

In the meantime, try having a lot of highly visible sex right next to the lounge window.

If anything will show them, that will. :smiley:

20

Having sex in the lounge would upset my kid - she’s already upset enough about being stared at and she’s not getting used to it either. Nine year olds can be funny that way. It’s most of the reason I ‘overreact’.

I believe I cost them at least one buyer for their house when it was on the market (before the collapse). You’d think the seller would have *mentioned *that his neighbour didn’t appreciate blokes hanging their elbows over the fence while having a good long perv at her living room.

Apparently not.