In the spirit of all the “crazy neighbor” threads that have been written in months & years past, I thought I’d start my own.
My object is twofold.
- To share with you my story of a weird/bad neighbor
and - to induce you to share with me stories of your neighbors - because it’s one of my favorite types of threads!
I have lived in my current apartment for almost 8 years. For the last 5 1/2 years my husband has been living here, too – as my boyfriend for the first 5 years and as my husband for the past 7 months.
I first moved in here in grad school, with 2 roommates. It was a 3-bedroom apartment when we moved in (second floor of a 2-family), but about 3 years ago the landlord finished the attic, and it’s now sort of a 4-bedroom apartment. I say “sort of” because one of the original bedrooms and the finished attic lack closets, which mean they can’t technically be called bedrooms in Massachusetts. But I digress…
We chose the apartment based on cost and the washer/dryer in the cellar, off-street parking and proximity to the T. We never based it on looks - the place really needs some improvements. But the landlord is very nice & responsive to fixing things, etc. The neighborhood is in transition from two-decker-owning senior citizens to condo-dwelling yuppies.
Other than a long-ago downstairs neighbor we still refer to as “Crazy Jessica,” we’ve been spoiled by having good neighbors. Which is probably part of why the current downstairs tenants are driving us out - we’re totally out of practice dealing with this kind of unpleasantness.
It all started in the fall of 2003…
The old tenant moved out - a quiet fellow named John who was very nice - and the (first-floor, 3-bedroom) apartment was empty for a week while the landlord refinished the floors & did some repainting. Then the new tenant arrived. She’s frighteningly skinny, has a used-up/old-before-her-time look about her, and we’re pretty sure she doesn’t have a job. I’m guessing she’s in her late 20s or early 30s, and one or both of her parents come by every few weeks to stay a night or two. My husband and I were talking about the fact that she has no visible means of financial support, and never seems to eat. One of us joked that she’s probably a recovering addict and now we uncharitably refer to her as “Crack Whore.” I felt bad about it at first, but as she’s really getting on my nerves, I feel less and less bad about it as time goes by. I should mention that we’ve seen absolutely no signs of drug use down there. We’re really just jumping to unfounded and unfair conclusions.
Her friends, who are in and out all the time (I’m not sure who is and is not living down there), look to be in their late teens/early twenties - significantly younger than CW. At first they spent all their time smoking on the front porch, drinking coffee, beer & diet Coke and leaving the cans & cups and bottles strewn about (they are surprisingly fastidious about disposing of their cigarrette butts, though). We figured that they liked the fresh air, and would move inside as the weather got colder. It took them a long time to move their festivities indoors. As of mid-December, they were still partying on the front porch, wrapped up in quilts and comforters and the like. That didn’ really annoy us, it was just odd.
Then they moved their chainsmoking jamboree indoors and we found out just how drafty this old building is. Our apartment is constantly filled with second-hand smoke and the clothes in our closets smell like we smoke. Some nights I can’t get to sleep because of the smoke wafting through the bedroom. We burn scented candles during al our waking hours, and use any air fresheners we can find that don’t reek, but it only helps a little.
They like to slam doors. I’m not sure any of them know there is any way to close a door other than by giving it a big heave. Everytime they close a door the whole buidling shakes. At 9am, at noon, at 10pm, at 3am.
CW’s mom & dad also slam the doors when they visit, so I know where she picked up that habit.
And when they’re not slamming doors, they’re leaving their front door open. Sometimes when they’re not even home. Not just unlocked, or slightly ajar, but gaping open.
In the cellar there are washers & dryers. 2 sets. One set is for the second floor apartment (us) and the other for the firstfloor apartment (her). It is pretty clear whose is whose, as they are labelled. However, she does not seem to care, and uses both sets. And lets her sundry friends use both sets when they bring their laundry by. Not so much of a problem, as long as they’re free when we need to use ours, but she’s constantly breaking them. She stuffs about 3 loads worth of clothes in the washer, then expresses amazement when the washer overflows and floods the cellar. She likes to stuff just as much into the dryers and then they break. Both dryers have broken 4 times each since she moved in. The motors mysteriously burn out and the drums stop tumbling. These machines are your normal household sized machines - big enough for about 3 pairs of pants and 3 shirts at a time. Whenever I have to remove her clothes from our machines, there’s enough in there to choke the poor thing. I’d love to see her in action someday. I picture her climbing up and stomping on the clothes in the washer to pack them down, and loading the dryer with the aid of a cannon ram.
She also loves to dump her clothes on the none-to-clean cellar floor. The area in front of her washer/dryer set is always littered with items of clothing. (As a matter of fact, the only evidence I have that she has any inkling the other set is not hers is that she never dumps her clothes in front if it). Sometimes when I go to the cellar to wash clothes I have to pull cloth items out from under her dryer. Her GAS-fueled dryer. The kind with an open flame underneath.
She also likes to store boxes of books and papers up against her furnace. Not a huge problem if it is functioning properly, but what if it overheats? Our furnace’s low-water shutoff malfunctioned 3 years ago and the furnace ran dry. It got hot enough to set off the smoke detectors, though not hot enough to catch fire before we shut it off & called the fire department to have a looksee. Needless to say, we are in the habit of moving her boxes of papers to a safer place when we find them nestled against the box o’ fire.
In the late fall she bought a dog. A super-sweet, cute & lovable dog, which I really like.
However, she’s not so good at cleaning up after it. When the dog first arrived, she and her friends actually used the pooper scooper to pick up the solid waste. However, they decided it was too much trouble to dispose of each and every nugget individually, so they began collecting them in a tall-kitchen garbage bag, which they tied to the porch railing right next to MY front door. Nothing says “it’s a beautiful new day” like walking past a bag of crap on your way to the bus stop.
Now, however, they don’t bother to pick up after the dog at all, so our yard (all 15 feet square of it) is a minefield sown with the worst kind of bombs. The stinky stick-to-your-shoe kind. I’m amazed that poor dog can find a clear space to do her business every day. She pobably wouldn’t be able to, except it’s been a very rainy spring. The worst part of this is that sometimes the dog has digestive upsets. She likes to chase (and apparently eat) the helicopters that the maple tree at the curb is producing. Then she either vomits them up on the sidewalk or they go all the way through to become diarrhea, which she likes to deposit on the paved area next to the trash cans. Neither of which CW cleans up. She just waits for rain to wash it away.
One night last week we came home around 11:30 pm to find the dog tied to the front gate so that she couldn’t get onto the front porch. When she tried to follow my husband and me up the stairs she got to the second step before being yanked backwards off the stairs by her leash. I felt so bad for her. Out in the yard in the dark, all alone, not able to get onto the porch where she usually hangs out, her people inside having a merry noisy time without her.
A few weeks ago the post office stopped delivering our mail because she likes to leave the dog unattended in the yard, and the mailman has to come into the yard to deliver the mail through the mail slots in our doors. I had to go to the main post office and give them written assurance that CW had agreed to keep the dog inside or be with it outside when the mailan arrived. CW wasn’t to worried about not getting any mail, so it’s not like she was willing to go to the PO to straighten it out.
Then last weekend (after we’d already found a new place and signed a lease, thank god!), she introduced us to their new roommate. A girl who looks about 17, and who is hugely pregnant! It just gets weirder and weirder down there. The new roommate drives an SUV and seems to be incapable of parking on their side of the driveway. If people park carefully you can fit 6 cars in our driveway… but not if you park your Canyonero diagonally with its ass-end taking up half of our side of the driveway!
And everyday something new appears on the front porch (their smoking soirees have moved back outside for the season). A ratty camp chair that looks like they found it in the trash. A shiny new $200 brushed stainless steel butterfly trash can from Hold Everything. A ceramic foot. 2 very old card tables. A giant orange plastic flower, about 18" in diameter. One day I came home to find a single shoe on the front steps. It has since made its way into the morass but shows no sign of finding its mate.
I realize I am probably blowing all this way out of proportion, but I can’t help it.
Feel free to sympathize, empathize and/or tell me your neighbor horror stories.
