Amongst all of the benefits of apartment living of which there are few… other than amenities, amenities, amenities, and no outside maintenance, their are many drawbacks. The main one would have to be neighbors.
I would like to say, first off that currently we do have one of the nicest neighbors we ever had. I am thankful for that. A majority of our neighbors are fine. Not really social, but no issues, however, there is always one. He happens to live right through our bedroom wall with his wife and two daughters who I believe are about 12 and 5. The current issue is this: It is 12:37 am. I have been trying to go to sleep for about 40 minutes. He is blasting Kidd Rock. He stops to choose songs, I start dozing and then BAM, the music is back and even louder. He is also a yeller. He apparently thinks everyone in his house is stupid. I have seen him have the 5 year old in tears outside telling her how stupid she is and how she is ruining everything. I also hear him yelling at his wife through the wall almost every day… Really not good times.
This got me thinking to my previous “bad” apartment neighbors.
My First Apartment (Studio in Hawaii): Tourette’s Guy - I had a neighbor that had severe tourette’s syndrome. It was in Hawaii and he didn’t have an air conditioning unit in his studio (common), so he would leave his window and his door open so a breeze would move through, and spend all day laying in bed in his underwear with his ticks. He was able to somewhat control them. He would just yell out in little bursts all day long. Luckily he would close his door at night, and I assume he would sleep.
Next Apartment (2 bdr, also in Hawaii): Stoners and Domestic Dispute – Ok, so the next apartment was great. A very nice two bedroom in Hawaii with secure entry, washer and dryer etc etc. The people directly below us were stoners and students. It was Hawaii, so that wasn’t uncommon. However, since they didn’t live on campus they would have all their stoner friends come over at all hours of the night to smoke and since there was a secure entry and they apparently didn’t have a phone to hook up to the intercom, their friends would come at all hours of the night (literally, I remember it happening at 5 am once) and stand below the windows and yell at them to let them up and then the smoke would just fill our apartment. I’ve got bad lungs. That was so not cool. At all. Their lease wasn’t renewed.
There was a second bad neighbor though. Domestic Dispute. There was a couple living in the apartment with a small child and a I believe one of their mother’s. Every week they got in a huge fight that would eventually end with property damage, and things flying them out on the street and someone calling the police. Apparently the guy was cheating on her… but they were still having really great sex apparently, because, at least once a week (again, remember this is Hawaii so everyone has their windows open), I would be awakened by extremely loud, to the point of being comical sex coming from the same apartment… and it would last for 45 minutes. No lie.
New York City Apartment (awesome studio in Chelsea with a sleep loft and affordable rent for NYC): Dog Girl – Everyone was really cool at first. My neighbor across the hall was a gay guy in his 20s that was super friendly. It was my dream NYC apartment, just the right size for me, nice neighborhood, easy access to transportation etc. And then he moved out. The girl that moved in was also in her 20s, and had one of those big giant Greyhound’s, not the nice little New York City sized Italian ones. At first, everything was cool… but then she started leaving the dog along for a day or two at a time, and the thing would howl and bark all day and night because it didn’t want to be alone in a cramped little apartment.
New Jersey Apartment (we thought it was nice): Young Children are Next to Godliness and our food stinks – So, we moved to New Jersey commuting distance from the city. Our apartment was a two bedroom, with a jacuzzi tub, etc etc. After we moved in we found out they had a bug problem… ewww. But the real issue was the downstairs neighbors. We had wood floors. The floors were thin. The day we were moving in they asked us if we could keep it down because their sons were studying. Umm.. not really. Then when we’d come home in our shoes, and walk across the apartment, they’d start banging on their ceiling with a broom, which would make our dogs freak out. Then they would come up and complain about the noise from us walking and our dogs. Then they complained because I would exercise before class sometime between 10:00 and 11:00 am… and they could here my feet through the mats I had put down and the mother stayed at home. The other issue was, they cooked really stinky food, and as the building was old, all the vents were connected, so… our bathroom smelled like their stinky food, which was really bad when I was pregnant and nauseous. It was… bad.
Charlotte was the only place we didn’t have any problem neighbors.
Anyway, he finally stopped his much. I think I will try to sleep again.