my apartment living experience. interesting.

[vash]

i'm in a tiny place. it's not expensive, so my neighbors are documentary worthy.

strangely, i am having a good time. it reminds me of my bachelor/college pad. except my wife being around ruins the illusion.

i miss having a couch. and i miss having real TV. but WTF.

doing laundry in a community room is interesting. i did have that, "huh, you left something in here" moment with a lady's panties. sucked both the lady and panties were huge. kids LOVE kicking a soccer ball against the exterior of my apartment. the GET OFF MY LAWN thing is not there, since it isnt my lawn. i quit caring, kids are fun. there is a tiny cute blonde girl i nicknamed the God-Father. she runs the tiny boys around with the efficiency of a drug cartel kingpin. across the way is a man living in total pain. he is HIV positive and has nerve pain full time. he came up hard in the 60's as a drag queen make up artist. he limps around the place tending to his contraband garden he is growing. apartment management looks the other way. he even clipped a bush into a giant heart shape. there is a cute young lady named MERCEDES. yup, like the car...she is smart and total party girl. she came running up with a girl wearing a tiny suede mini skirt and introduced herself. they were both carrying a 12 pack of micro brew. i can only imagine the shenanigans going on in that apartment. the sad thing; there is some domestic violence going on..slaps, cussing. sheriff rolls up and nothing happens. it is amazing watching the fighting pair reunite against the new threat..the sheriff. glad i didnt go with the LEO route. there is one young dude. brand new BMW m-something and zero apartment furniture. his priorities are fantastic.

the other night i made a braise tomato risotto, and some slow cooked goat mole. i invited a pro-chef/cook living in the complex over to join us since i she said her dinner was going to be Cheetos. i learned that being a line-cook SUCKS. the pay is tiny. she can barely keep the lights on. i know the place she works and it is a pinky out, tea drinking place. high end white table cloth stuff. she said only the head-chef makes money..and maybe the sous. she is hoping for a promotion to Sous-chef. crazy looking into the inner workings of a restaurant. that $150 price fixed menu doesnt appear to trickle down that far.

i cant wait to move

[look 171]

Interesting how we're grown up and really noticed these things but were blinded in our younger days. Back then, they were just some people living in the apt.

[GH85Carrera]

My first place away from mom and dad was "furnished" garage apartment that was $90 per month and not wort that. It was a horrible place but it made me real happy to move up to a nicer place.

In my single days I dated more than a few women that lived in the typical apartment complex. Some of them had an interesting pool areas in the summer. Most had horrible parking situations and getting groceries from the car to the apartment was an exercise in frustration. Most had no sound insulation between the apartments and the racket was horrible. For some reason we seemed to spend a lot more time at my house than the apartments of the ladies.

I miss apartment living like a toothache.

Just remember you are saving money for that perfect place with a 3 car garage!

[1990C4S]

I would not have your positive outlook under the same circumstances.

[MikeSid]

Write a story. You just need a wheelchair, a long lens, Grace Kelly, and a murder.

[ckelly78z]

Our first apartment was a house/duplex that had a carpeted wooden ladder to access the upstairs bedroom. It had a small kitchen, with a small dining table, a small full bathroom, and a decent sized living room. In the grand scheme of things, it wasn't all that bad of a location and was only $200 a month back in 1988. It was on a fairly quiet street, but after moving to the country on 10 acres, I couldn't imagine living life in a shoebox ever again.

[VincentVega]

perspective is everything

After spending most of the weekend working on my yard/house projects I think about a condo sometimes.

[oldE]

Ah memories of apartment life!
We heard scratching at our door on the 3rd (top) floor one day. It was a small dog. When I opened the door and he saw me, he turned and headed for the stairwell door. I opened it for him and followed him to the second floor. When I let him into the hallway, he went to the apartment under ours. Turned our his owner would let him out and he would wait his chance to get back into the building, but he couldn't count. and would sometimes end up on the wrong floor
There were always kids running around and one little girl in particular was never where people expected her to be. We soon got tired of hearing people calling "Aaaaaaprilllllllll!"
In another apartment, the fellow upstairs seemed to have trouble getting around without running into things in the morning. We soon came to think of him as "Stumblebum". One Christmas they gave their daughter a keyboard and we had the pleasure of hearing the girl pacticing "Silent Night" over and over and over..
Our house these days is 1/4 .mile from our nearest neighbor.
We don't hear them.

Best
Les

[MBAtarga]

Vash - with those neighbors you've got and your keen observation skills, seems you've got the beginnings of a "Rear Window" type of event. (reference to Hitchcock movie, if you didn't know)

[GH85Carrera]

Originally Posted by oldE

Ah memories of apartment life!
We heard scratching at our door on the 3rd (top) floor one day. It was a small dog. When I opened the door and he saw me, he turned and headed for the stairwell door. I opened it for him and followed him to the second floor. When I let him into the hallway, he went to the apartment under ours. Turned our his owner would let him out and he would wait his chance to get back into the building, but he couldn't count. and would sometimes end up on the wrong floor
There were always kids running around and one little girl in particular was never where people expected her to be. We soon got tired of hearing people calling "Aaaaaaprilllllllll!"
In another apartment, the fellow upstairs seemed to have trouble getting around without running into things in the morning. We soon came to think of him as "Stumblebum". One Christmas they gave their daughter a keyboard and we had the pleasure of hearing the girl pacticing "Silent Night" over and over and over..
Our house these days is 1/4 .mile from our nearest neighbor.
We don't hear them.

Best
Les

At my first apartment the entire apartment was up 13 steps outdoors to get to my front door. Most of the time the only other garage apartment that shared my stairs were quiet people. Then in moved the moron. He loved to work on his car after midnight and crank up the music loud enough in the apartment that he could hear it downstairs. And he had to RUN up and down the steps to get something constantly. My bed would shake like an earthquake every time he did that. The next morning I got up early to get ready to go to work. I turned the speakers toward his apartment and cranked it up to 11. I could hardly think to cook my breakfast. I needed to run up and down the steps a few times to get stuff out of my car as well. I know he was home. I think I made my point. He was a bit quieter after that.

When I had a chance to move a week later, I was out of there.

[pdxfj]

I lived in a bottom floor apartment for a few years. Had a few people move in and out above me in that time frame.

The most memorable was the last couple before I moved out. They both were very overweight and had a very, very, very squeaky bed. When they were feeling frisky, you could go outside and hear it squeaking over 20 feet away with all the doors and windows closed.

Still could hear it inside my apartment with ear plugs and over the ear muffs I use for shooting.

I brought it up to management. They did nothing and I'm guessing because it was an embarrassing situation. So I decided to take matters into my own hands..

I visited local bed shops, explained my situation and asked if they had any coupons they could give me. Everyone laughed their ass off when I explained what was going on.

After I had a selection of coupons from a number of bed stores, I visited a local craft store and bought a gift basket and some fancy tissue paper. I also picked up a can of WD-40 and Silicone spray lube from an auto parts store.

Spent a little time making up the basket and waited for them to get home. Shortly after hearing them upstairs, I went up and knocked on the door. She answered and I handed the basket over, smiled and walked away without saying anything.

For the next two months I was there, it was very quiet. I'm guessing they got the hint..

[scottmandue]

My first house was a shack in the hood... no seriously... the guy who built it (so the story goes) built shacks for the railroad (and I believe them for the following reasons).
2X3 redwood studs 24" on center, 1/4" drywall inside 1/4" ceder clapboard on the outside, no grounded electrical, and no insulation, it was just about like sleeping in a tent so every dog bark or domestic unrest was very apparent.

Oh and the foundation was rows of those little cement piers with random irregular chunks of wood wedges in to fit.

Unknown to me it just so happened the all the parents and grandparents of the gang bangers lived on that block... and if you are a gangster it is extremely uncool to hang out in the street where your parents live. I never had any trouble living ten years in a neighborhood that many white folks were afraid to drive through.

All that to say make me appreciate the comfy house I now have.

[reachme]

there is a cute young lady named MERCEDES. yup, like the car

Other way around. The car got it's name from a woman a long long time ago.

[Jrboulder]

Other than the uber drivers across the way who keep getting their cars repo'd my townhouse complex suddenly seems pretty low key.

[mistertate]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZy277zUECk

[MRM]

Originally Posted by reachme

Other way around. The car got it's name from a woman a long long time ago.

Yes. And the woman's name is meant to be pronounced MER-suh-dees instead of Mer-SAY-dees. It is a far, far better way to pronounce the name than I have ever done.

[nzporsche944s2]

Vash - I love your observations! I'm sure there's the basis for a book there

Reminds me of the novel "Hotel Honolulu" by Paul Theroux where each chapter essentially describes a character in a hotel room and how they are entwined with one another. Great read - all fiction of course unlike your non-fiction experience.

[WPOZZZ]

Originally Posted by MRM

Yes. And the woman's name is meant to be pronounced MER-suh-dees instead of Mer-SAY-dees. It is a far, far better way to pronounce the name than I have ever done.

Named after Emil Jellinek's daughter, Mercedes.

[WPOZZZ]

Btw, I prefer condo living to house living. As a single guy, the only good thing about my house is I can park my cars all over the place. Condos are much easier for me, and it is more fun. I have a few condos for investments and one has a bunch of hot Korean kpop chicks, another has lots of Korean, Thai and Chinese chicks, and the last one has a bunch of snobby old rich people.

[epbrown]

After 30 years of apartment living, I finally bought a house about a year ago. It's hilarious to me that there are more boundary issues with home owners than I ever had with people I shared walls with. I painted the house and when I was scraping I got all these nervous "uh, so what colors are you using" inquiries (white with blue trim was a huge relief).

One house across the street is empty (really, really empty!), but the older lady who owns the property lives in the area. If she ever drives down our street and sees a car parked in front of the house, she stops and knocks on doors until she finds the owner and asks them to move. Until I moved in, people did! When she came to my door, I gave her a printout of the local parking ordinance and told her not to bother me again. (Our houses were built around 1900 - no driveways.)