Tag Archives: Neighbors

Thank you, Stoners One Two and Three for ruining the song.

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A couple of months ago I read about Nick Cave’s new art opening in W Magazine. I assumed they were writing about this Nick Cave:

Not so much. Yesterday while driving through downtown Austin, we passed the Jones Center, which is currently exhibiting Hiding in Plain Sight, by a completely different Nick Cave. Rather than go into detail, suffice it to say he does stuff involving fibers and pogo sticks, among other things:

Anyway, all this reminded me of some moronic neighbors I had about a decade ago. After several years of weird roommates, I decided it was time to live by myself. Being that I was in school and working at a restaurant, I could only afford a certain amount of rent. My choices were limited, and I ended up in a crappy studio apartment in a building filled with some interesting characters. And by interesting, I mean thugs and stoners. The people directly across from me fell into the stoner category, and there were three of them living in a tiny studio. None of them were employed, so even though the rent was only $700 a month, the apartment manager was constantly threatening to evict them for non-payment. Keep in mind this was well before the economy went south, and all three dudes were about my age. They could have gotten jobs, but that would have involved getting up in the morning, and possibly passing a drug test, neither of which was going to happen.

To supplement for the lack of living space, the stoner dudes decided to put an entire living room set of furniture outside of their apartment, which was mere feet away from my front door, and because these were some of the tiniest studios ever, my bed. I went round and round with those guys. There was no AC in any of the units. I went out and bought a wall unit, but Larry, Curly, and Moe were only able to pull enough cash together for weed, so they sweated it out. Rather than hang out inside, they spent all their time outside on their what I assumed to be flea and lice infested couches. All their time, by the way, was at night. All night. Every night. And none of them gave a damn if they woke me or anyone else up in the building. I started by politely asking them to keep it down after midnight (which is beyond reasonable), to which I only got a blank stare. I asked not so politely, same blank stare. Between the three of them they had an IQ of about 10, so I don’t know why I bothered.

Flash forward to finals week. I stayed up half the night cramming for a test, and was trying to catch a few hours of much needed sleep. Instead, I listened to Red Right Hand over and over and over again, because The Stoners had brought a boom box outside and were playing it on repeat. Also on repeat was their conversation. They kept talking about how Nick Cave was so high during the recording of the song that, “You can just feel his eyes rolling back inside his head, maaaaaaaaaan!”

Every time they replayed the song they turned it up a little louder, which meant they had to yell a little louder to make their asinine observations heard. The fourth or fifth time it happened, something snapped in me. Clad in PJs, I opened my front door and let loose a torrent of pent up anger.

Pent. The Fuck. Up.

I had finals, and had put up with their nonsense for far too long. The funny thing was, they just could not understand why I was upset, you could see it in their bewildered and red-rimmed eyes.

After I finished flipping out, they replayed the song at full blast, and I’ve never been able to listen to it since without feeling a tinge of annoyance.

***

By the way, the next two days will be a whirlwind of travel, so I won’t be posting again until Thursday. Happy Holidays to all of you!!

Hi, my name is Vesta, and I’m an ass.

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So, this morning I was in the laundry room when one of my neighbors walked in while I was getting my clothes out of the dryer. She’s a very nice woman, one of the few approachable folks in the building. I think I’ve mentioned before that we live in a rather unfriendly complex – no one knows each other’s names and there is zero sense of community. Because of this, my husband and I have given our neighbors names based on personality traits and whatnot. You guys remember the Poop Baggers (to be fair, they finally stopped leaving bags of dog poop outside their door months ago, but the name will probably always stick), and then there are The Couple with the Kid, The Crazy Bald Guy, The Bulldog Couple (no, that’s not mean, they have a bulldog), etc. It just so happens I know the name of the particular neighbor that came into the laundry room this morning, because last year UPS mistakenly delivered her package to our door. But prior to that we called her The Soap Lady, since she makes fancy soaps and sells them at nearby farmers markets. However, my husband can never remember her name, so he continues to call her soap lady.

Anyway, she and I exchanged hellos and whatnot, and then she asked me if I work. I told her I work from home, blah blah, and she told me she was a freelance writer for 20 years. And then she said, “I didn’t become The Soap Lady  until I retired.”

That line, by the way, was delivered with crossed arms, a smirk, and raised eyebrows. Ahem. Yeah, I think it’s safe to say that, at some point, she overheard one of us call her the soap lady.

Well, don’t I feel like a bit of an ass.

***

On an un-ass-y related note, I saw this over the weekend. Usually my shout outs are to real life or blogger friends. I have no idea who these guys are, but I really hope they find the funding to make this movie.

Well that didn’t go as planned.

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So a couple of weeks ago my downstairs neighbor’s dog began barking. Incessantly. Then, it began alternating between yapping and howling the most pitiful, lonely wolf howl you have ever heard in your life.

That went on and on, hours at a stretch, for days. And days. And days.

To make matters worse, the dog was confined to one room, which happens to be right below my office. On top of that, my dog Spazzy was very upset about the whole thing, so she took to pacing the room and giving me a look that clearly said, well aren’t you going to do something?? So I did. I grabbed my laptop and moved to the living room. The only problem was that I could still hear the dog.

I am, in case you didn’t know, an animal person. I can’t walk into a pet store if they sell animals because it makes me want to cry to see them in cages. It’s too darned sad. So the sound of Los Lonely Pup downstairs upset me as much as it did Spazzy, plus it was making it hard to get any work done. Finally I decided to talk to my neighbors about their little yapper. I also had what I hoped would be a solution.

When we first got Spazzy from the pound, it was pure hell. She wasn’t house trained, gnawed on anything she could get her mouth around, and had horrible separation anxiety. She just would not shut the fuck up while we were gone, which I know because our neighbor across they way told us so. After a great deal of time and money was spent on dog walkers and doggy daycare and whatnot, we finally found a trainer that gave us some very good and practical advice. One of the things she suggested was a KONG toy, which is basically a cone shaped piece of rubber that’s hollow. You fill it with treats and it keeps them busy forever while they try to get the food. It was a miracle, and kept Spazzy quiet for long periods of time.

So I dug the toy out of a cabinet, washed it, and went downstairs to offer it to my neighbors. When she opened the door, I said hello and blah blah blah, and then I very nicely told her that her dog was pitching a fit. Her response was, “Pitching a fit? What does that mean?”

Side note – Is that a Texas thing? I asked my husband if people say pitching a fit (okay, I say pitchin’, G’s are silent to me, m’kay?) in California too, or if it’s a Tex-ism. He swears it’s a common phrase, but it’s possible he’s been with me so long it just sounds normal to him. *shrug*

Anyway, I explained about the howling and barking, and right about that time Spazzy started pitching a world class fit. I am talking a doggy temper tantrum of epic proportions. Awesome. So I hold up the rubber toy, and tell my neighbor about how fantastic it is, and keeps dogs busy and quiet, and perhaps she’d like to give it a try and see if it helps her pup? All the while Spazzy is barking her little head off upstairs, and let me tell you, the yip yapping of a min-pin is one of the most annoying sounds on the planet. You should have seen the look on my neighbor’s face. She did take the toy, but with an expression that clearly said I probably needed it more than her.

Thanks for making me look like an asshole.

Take your pick.

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There is a door we never open. It’s in the kitchen and leads to a back stairwell. It has five locks on it, and we never, ever use it. I refuse to go out that way because the door has no peephole, which is sort of silly since the front door does have one, and I never look out it before leaving. I think it’s the five locks that put me off – with that many, there has to be something lurking outside, right? My husband doesn’t use the door either. It’s like it doesn’t exist. Once, we came home, and I locked the door behind me with my husband’s keys still in the lock. Actually, we didn’t realize they were there until we attempted to leave the house again and the door wouldn’t open. Apparently you can’t unlock the door from the inside if keys are stuck in it from outside. So I was like, shit, I guess I’ll call the apartment manager and see if he can unlock the door for us. Fortunately, my mom was visiting, and before I could make a fool out of myself, she pointed out we had another door.

Don’t laugh. It didn’t occur to my husband either. That’s how non-existent the door is to us.

So anyway, last week it hit 90 one day, and we turned on the air conditioner for the first time in months. Our place was suddenly filled with a yucky smell. Like, bad. Our apartment manager said the maintenance guy would come by to check it out, which meant he would come by at some point, one day, when it was convenient for him. He finally called me yesterday to say he’d be by at noon. He showed up at 1:30. I turned on the AC to let the stink do the explaining, and the maintenance guy said he needed to check the filter. Apparently, the unit is in a closet outside the backdoor. So he fumbles with all the locks, opens the door, and guess what?

Three telephone books and a fuckton of takeout menus fell inside. Almost all the takeout menus came from the same Thai restaurant. Thanks a lot, assholes. Actually, there were so many menus that I have the feeling our neighbor across the way just tosses hers in the pile next to our backdoor.

If you are new to this blog, once in a while I write about my neighbors, and most recently I wrote about their refusal to pick up the phone book and either take it inside or throw it away. This year it only took them 16 days.

So, one of two things:

I am a hypocrite for ragging on my neighbors when I have piles of crap (but not literally, the poop baggers that live downstairs have everyone beat) outside my backdoor.

Or, I am not a hypocrite, but my neighbors somehow discovered my blog, and decided to dump all their unwanted books and menus by our door. If that’s the case, well done neighbors, well done.