When you’re looking for a new apartment or house (hahaha! a millennial…buying property? In THIS economy??) there are tons of things you’ll be on the lookout for. How many bedrooms and bathrooms does a place have? Does it get natural light? How insanely complicated is the street parking? (I’ve lived in LA for almost 30 years and I still don’t know what a “Red Flag Day” is) But, unfortunately, there are several things that you really can’t know about until you live somewhere for a while. I’m here to complain about one of those things today: noisy neighbors!
Thankfully I have not had awful neighbors (or perhaps I have and just blocked them out of my memory). However I did have an awful roommate that never, ever, flushed the toilet after herself. The pee I didn’t mind, but everything else was quite a (smelly and dirty) issue. And when I brought it up she denied it, even though it was just the two of us. I lasted in that sublet for a very long 3 months.
We bought our first house (I know, typical bragging boomer) which was definitely larger than your apartment, but still small enough so I could vacuum the entire place from one outlet. I was deliriously happy until we discovered that our adult neighbor directly across the street, who we almost never saw, had huge screaming fights with his mother, who lived with him - or maybe it was her house. We were too afraid to get close enough to find out. Aside from the fights we found out he worked at the post office, so you start thinking all the bad stereotypes about people going postal, and the final discovery was that he was a Vietnam vet. Which made me feel incredibly sad and guilty for the fact that I worried when I mowed my little lawn (with a manual mower I bought from a friend for $10) that I might get shot. Eventually he sent a note around to the houses in the vicinity apologizing for his mood swings and we had him and his mom over for a little neighborhood get together. It doesn't sound like your neighbors are ever likely to apologize. Or come over to your place with their mom.
Living in Silver Lake in the ‘90’s we had a C level celebrity living next door. When his tv series was canceled he started a career as a pop singer and was living off his fame(?) and earnings from Europe. He’d pound on his piano and wail until early in the morning, most often to young, foolish blondes and then they’d have incredibly loud and seemingly endless sex. We lived a canyon and the sound reverberated off the hillsides. This went on for about 6 months until he finally moved away.
This happened to me at my previous apartment, but I had a much smaller threshold 😂 The guy below me was playing Usher/R&B throwbacks with the bass bumping at 10pm on a weeknight, and I actually went down to his apartment and was like, turn that shit down, idk about you but I actually have work in the morning 👺
Our neighbor would threaten to kill anyone who parked on his side of the street. When Michael and I went over to speak to his mother and tell her we would call the police if he didn’t stop, she said she was terrified of him. The Mother‘a mother also lived there and a young girl who was not quite right, as they say. We never figured out what the familial structure was — but as a friend said, it was a Hammer Film.
Thankfully I have not had awful neighbors (or perhaps I have and just blocked them out of my memory). However I did have an awful roommate that never, ever, flushed the toilet after herself. The pee I didn’t mind, but everything else was quite a (smelly and dirty) issue. And when I brought it up she denied it, even though it was just the two of us. I lasted in that sublet for a very long 3 months.
It makes me feel old to know that you are old enough to be shaking angry fists at young whipper snappers.
We bought our first house (I know, typical bragging boomer) which was definitely larger than your apartment, but still small enough so I could vacuum the entire place from one outlet. I was deliriously happy until we discovered that our adult neighbor directly across the street, who we almost never saw, had huge screaming fights with his mother, who lived with him - or maybe it was her house. We were too afraid to get close enough to find out. Aside from the fights we found out he worked at the post office, so you start thinking all the bad stereotypes about people going postal, and the final discovery was that he was a Vietnam vet. Which made me feel incredibly sad and guilty for the fact that I worried when I mowed my little lawn (with a manual mower I bought from a friend for $10) that I might get shot. Eventually he sent a note around to the houses in the vicinity apologizing for his mood swings and we had him and his mom over for a little neighborhood get together. It doesn't sound like your neighbors are ever likely to apologize. Or come over to your place with their mom.
Living in Silver Lake in the ‘90’s we had a C level celebrity living next door. When his tv series was canceled he started a career as a pop singer and was living off his fame(?) and earnings from Europe. He’d pound on his piano and wail until early in the morning, most often to young, foolish blondes and then they’d have incredibly loud and seemingly endless sex. We lived a canyon and the sound reverberated off the hillsides. This went on for about 6 months until he finally moved away.
This happened to me at my previous apartment, but I had a much smaller threshold 😂 The guy below me was playing Usher/R&B throwbacks with the bass bumping at 10pm on a weeknight, and I actually went down to his apartment and was like, turn that shit down, idk about you but I actually have work in the morning 👺
Our neighbor would threaten to kill anyone who parked on his side of the street. When Michael and I went over to speak to his mother and tell her we would call the police if he didn’t stop, she said she was terrified of him. The Mother‘a mother also lived there and a young girl who was not quite right, as they say. We never figured out what the familial structure was — but as a friend said, it was a Hammer Film.