Posts Tagged ‘neighbors’

So you all know by now I live in a horrible dump I unaffectionately call The Blue Hovel, named for its disgusting ancient blue office carpet replete with gross holes (and that I recently thought was the source of a scabies attack till I realized it was heat rash), clashing light blue floor tile in the kitchen and more unrelated-in-the-blue-family tile covering the bathroom walls.  Doesn’t help that my couch (bought before this apartment) is also blue.

You probably also know I had a horrible situation with my first upstairs neighbors due to the fact that the ceiling is a GPS for whoever lives above, creaking loudly everywhere, particularly above my bed.  The girl who replaced them was petite and often away on a trip, so I didn’t have a burbling hatred with her at all, though it’s still been a series of intrusions to hear her alarm go off for mornings and naps, the occasional bout of crying, many many sleep interruptions…basically, more uninvited humanity than a person deserves in their own private space.

But it’s cheap.

I moved here after breaking up with Nick and this was the least awful available place in the neighborhood, so I took it.  There are some redeeming features as far as location and…come to think of it, that’s the only redeeming feature.

Because not only is it embarrassingly ugly, it’s embarrassingly small – around 350sq ft.  Luckily, I don’t own a lot of things, yet it’s taken creativity to live here.  Anyone coming over would always say “it’s not so bad!” but they were just being nice.  And a couple friends have witnessed the ceiling clomping, so trust me, I’m not being Princess and the Pea about it.

Anyway, you know I started talking about moving out during the first year while on my Financial Marathon (start with the bottom post and work up, if you care).  Tail between my legs, that didn’t come to fruition in as timely a manner as I’d hoped, so I signed the lease for another year.  Wonder of Wonders, a few months later, the Financial Marathon did come to a successful conclusion!  My income increased substantially and I was finally saving money – a fantastic turn of events, especially because prior to that, my bank account had hovered for over a year between $2-$4000.  Scary at my age.

But now I’ve got a little nest egg building and it’s been amazing to be able to buy the few things I want (very few, I can barely fit an extra pair of socks in this dump) or drop $1000 on the Vegas Half Marathon trip coming up and not even have a second thought.

Cut To The Chase, Flo!
My lease is expiring Sept. 1st and even though this place is utter shit, I had decided to renew for one final year, delaying escape to save more dough.  One reason was that my new income level still feels foreign and since I’m self-employed, I figured another year would let me trust it.  Plus, I really despise moving as an activity and the girl upstairs was gone enough that I figured I could stand it for another 12 months.

But then, a month ago, I saw a U-Haul outside…the girl upstairs was moving out!  All of a sudden, I was in panic mode, knowing that whoever moved up there wasn’t likely to be out of town regularly.

It turned out to be another young girl, nice enough, but who has been here for 4 days and already woken me up every.  single. night. at around 2am.  Luckily, I’m taking that melatonin so I’m able to return to sleep quickly but I have had it!!! And I’m not at all blaming the girl, I used to go to bed at 3am when I was her age – it’s just that this is one craptasticly horrible building.

So I started looking at Craigslist and getting depressed over the listings until I did some calculations and realized…I can afford a nice place!  I’m just so used to being poor, I was still in a mentality of thinking my rent had to be as low as possible.  This is crazy, considering the amount of time I spend at home – if there’s one thing I should spend money on, it’s a place I love to be.  Furthermore, even with a sizable rent increase, I’ll still be able to save while getting TONS more for my dough.

So when my window broke on Sunday, I was all “This is yet another sign saying GO, ALREADY!”.   Hell, I’ve even been toying with forfeiting my security deposit to escape one month sooner but I’ll do my best to stick it out.  This is one move I will not despise.

The Adventurers
Unrelated, I wanted to post this great photo of my ex-husband, Jonny, and friend Andy, who are in the midst of a 10-week sailing adventure.  They started in Long Island, NY and are headed to Disko Island, Greenland before sailing back down again, just the two of them on Andy’s boat.  Here they are yesterday on the Strait of Belle Isle (Jonny left, Andy right) giving a 4th of July toast, which is kinda funny since Jonny’s a Brit and Andy’s Swiss.

Check out the map.  I included Iceland so you can get an idea of how far north they’re going.  This, my friends, is one of the few occasions I reserve the word Awsome for.  Because it literally is.

Grrrr
Someone made $900 of bogus online purchases on my debit card this week, entailing long phone holds to get it squared away, lack of a working card for a few days, and the general freakout that money leaving your account creates.

My veggie burger toe looks like it ran a marathon, nice purple nail.  Hurts a bit normally but not bad running, though I could feel it with my strides yesterday.  I’m not worried about it for the race though, it’ll be fine.

Life/Love thoughts have been messing with me this week, brought on by the hormonal wonderland that is Lady Time, I’m sure.  I think it probably falls under Lust Angst more than Life/Love Angst though, so nothing serious, just…angst.

Some stupid flashback of last Fall’s evil neighbor drama happened the night before last (though nothing even approaching the misery of that story, thank god).  The idiot girl who lives above me – not directly above but the one next to her – so named “The Idiot” because she kept putting her trash out after the trash people came (they only come once a week) so other people had to clean up her messes…anyway, she was up to something the other night, going up and down the stairs for a couple hours, making a lot of noise past midnight. I didn’t say anything about it except for a muttered “shut the fuck up” while lying in bed.

The next morning I wake up to a note under my door telling me I was rude to make so much noise tromping up and down the stairs.  Even though the author (the girl below me) had the offending party wrong, it really bugged me that I was being called out for it.   I wrote a nice note saying it wasn’t me and that it was the idiot above.

About an hour later, The Idiot makes a couple more up and downs and I open my door to say the neighbor below left me a note “just so you know”, and the girl got this deer in the headlights look, like she’d stolen something and said “My friend was here from Michigan and I brought her suitcase up”.  WTF?  I have decided that either she was moving someone in (though I didn’t hear another voice) or that her 20-year-old self looked in the mirror and thought she was fat, so she went up and down the stairs for 2 hours.  I’m leaning toward the latter.

Purrrr
My gal-pals Audra and (hopefully) Kat will be here on Saturday, staying with me to spectate and/or race.  Kat’s deal is up in the air, thanks to an unexpected case of shingles, of all things, but I’m hoping she gets here at least.

After the race is a gathering of RWOL and FB folks at a local bar, only a couple whom I’ve met in the flesh before, so I’m looking forward to it.  Hope to see my local cuties, the Knast twins and Peggy there, too – it’d be cool to get to talk to you gals longer than a millisecond.

I’m calm about the race, just taking it for what it ends up being, which will if nothing else, supersede the memory of the collapsing Half.  That alone will be worth its weight in gold.  The weather looks stellar, btw.  NOAA says 40 degrees and 3mph wind.

I got a new iPod Shuffle, my 3rd one, having fried the first two with sweat.  I have a Creative Nano for my fallback mp3 player when I’m between Shuffles.  Because it sits a bit off the waistband, it doesn’t have the frying problem, but it’s a bit trickier to use thanks to a minuscule wheel that doubles as a button.  Plus you have to change the format of iTunes songs to mp3s to play them on it.  Not that I take music out all the time, probably on 1/4 of my runs, but I do love the simplicity of the Shuffle.

Been getting some great voiceover jobs recently and have been told by several different people at the company that does the medical learning modules that I’m the company favorite and “No wonder everyone loves working with you”, which is oh so flattering.  And I just now got a call for a long non-medical job next month with a new (big) client.  Between that and all my other little streams of income, I’m making more moolah now so hopefully, I will leave the Blue Hovel without a look back when my lease expires next Fall.

Life has settled down and with it, a most lovely event:  the last of the asshole neighbors moved out over the weekend, leaving the building 100% asshole free (aside from myself).

My apartment is still tiny, covered in stupid blue office carpet and today, I saw a trash bag go flying by my window (I’m on the top floor) because whoever lives in the building next to mine decided throwing trash out a window to land mid-sidewalk is a good enough effort on garbage pick-up day.  But I can deal with these annoyances now that the “enemy” vibe is gone.

This is good because it’s doubtful I’ll be able to move by September.  I’m holding steady money-wise (seems I build one area up and another loses steam) so no big income improvement yet and it looks like replacing my car will be all I’ll be able to handle this year.  Maybe it’s time to hang a picture.

More important than money though, it’s time to tackle the social aspect of life – something I’ve been reticent to face since I will always be my favorite company, but I need to shake things up  and start making an effort to get out and about, maybe stop turning down invitations from friends and even make some new ones.

To that end, I’m writing this here so I have witnesses:  This Saturday, I’m going to run with a local running group for the very first time.  There,  I said it and now I have to do it.  Shit.

I’m such a solo runner that the idea of talking to strangers on a run freaks me out, but I know it’s a good thing to do and the local group seems pretty cool from their message board, so I’ve really got no excuse.   In fact, I’m quite sure I’m going to like it quite a bit.  I think.  I hope.  eek

Interesting last couple of days, though not in the scary interesting way that seems to have plagued me recently.

I’ll get the running stuff out of the way quickly, since it’s uneventful and will be for the rest of the month.  Like everywhere else in the US, it was a cold and windy week.  Mon-Sat, I ran 7,9,11,7,off,11 and tomorrow will be 8, giving me 53mi for the week.

Now, on to the subject of Life:  I’ve been offered first dibs on the upstairs apartment.

I thought about it a lot.  On one hand, the idea of living in their space was somewhat disgusting to me and would likely require burning 3 tons of sage to dispel the negativity they’ve left behind.  Additionally, I’d be paranoid about walking around for whomever moves into this place, even with carpet, since Real Estate lady told me you can hear me in the unoccupied apt below (no surprise as I hear it myself when I walk).

On the other hand: it’s the top floor, so I wouldn’t have to deal with another tenant above my head.  Moreover, talk about your ultimate show of one-upmanship, I’d have loved their friends in the apartment below to report that I’d moved into their place, that would have been deliciously fabulous.

But then Real Estate lady told me they want more money for it and when I did the math, it wasn’t worth it, I could get a better place without the crappy floors and even crappier memories.  So now I have a goal for 2010 that doesn’t involve running:

I’m going to increase my income by $500/mo and move into a doorman building when my lease expires. There, I said it.  I’m announcing this like a cigarette smoker announces their intentions to quit, so they have an extra layer of guilt should they not succeed, though in my case, should I not succeed I’ll be stuck in this hellhole.  If that’s not motivating, what is?

The great thing is, it’s completely within my power to make more dough.  My web businesses are beautifully scaleable: do more=make more, so I simply have to do more.  The problem has always been that when it comes to money, I am incredibly lazy, I make just enough for what I need and then I sit on my ass doing nothing.  It’s fun!  Or was, anyway.  Now what would be fun is living in a solid place with an elevator and someone at the desk to accept UPS packages.

I measured my apartment yesterday and it’s under 400 sq ft (my, that was embarrassing to admit).  Turns out those doorman apartments are almost $1 less per sq foot than what I’m paying for this dump!  And they have dishwashers, washing machines & dryers in the apartments, some have swimming pools and gyms, free buses to downtown, the utilities are mostly included…oh god, I’m salivating just thinking about it.

I wouldn’t even need $500/mo to cover the difference, $300 would do it, but because I want to train myself to embrace excess, $500 sounds like a good start.  So here’s to More in 2010 – may it bring more money, more happiness and a whole lot less freaky shit.

An update to the last post.  I heard somebody in the apt above and I was so friggin’ mad about them having the last word that I opened the door to find the girlfriend there.  I stared, she asked “Is there something I can help you with?”…she looked worried.  We had words.  She kept calling me a drug addict and that I burn incense (never) and still smoke pot (not since Sept. 27).  It’s obviously the only bad thing they can think to say about me, and a lie.

Next thing you know, her boyfriend is knocking on my door, so I pretend I’m on the phone, I laugh and repeat stuff he’s saying like I’m talking to a friend about it, I also say I’m going to call the cops.  He has the nerve to say “I’m only doing what you did to me.”

WTF?????

They left but not before ringing the buzzer for 5 minutes, so I’ve disconnected it since I imagine they’ll try that again.  I’ve put a call in with the Realtor lady to see why they still have keys and tell her what happened.  I really hate that their friends still live below me, that could be bad.

Yes, LA Runner, in answer to your comment on the previous post, I did cry and I am scared.

Edit: it’s 30 minutes later, I’m not shaking anymore and will not be scared by this.  “I’m only doing what you did to me” is not the phrase of a dangerous person, just a total idiot.

Wow.  I wrote an entire post about my neighbors finally moving out and was going to post it after I returned from my run, but when I opened the door to leave, I saw two notes stuck on my door which required a full blog rewrite.

Because I have a good amount of new readers (a failed marathon will do that for a blogger), here’s the background:

I moved into this apartment at the beginning of September.  For an entire month, I lived with my upstairs neighbor waking me up every morning.  The ceiling creaks horribly and I hear each and every footfall, plus the guy part of the couple is especially heavy-heeled and is awake at all hours of the night.

So I finally got my gumption up one morning, knocked on their door and spoke to the girlfriend, super apologetically, because it can’t be fun to have someone make a complaint.  I asked if he could just be a bit more mindful in the mornings so I could sleep past 6am.

The girl was pretty nice, said it was her boyfriend and that she’d talk to him.   Also, that I should knock on her door if it happens again, I said it’s daily, but thank you.  And for the next few days, I got sleep!  When I saw the boyfriend on the stairs I smiled hugely at him and said, “I love you! Thank you!” he laughed and that was that.

Until the next week, at 3:30am, he was walking back and forth over where my bed is and running the garbage disposal, making all sorts of noise.  But I’m not a big one on confrontation, so instead of knocking on the door the next morning, I wrote a simple note and slid it under their door.  A couple hours later as the boyfriend leaves, he slides it back under my door with his addition in pink.

What happened next is here. (sorry Nick to bring this up again)

After that, I avoided them and haven’t laid eyes on either one since, though I was woken often and started taking melatonin to get some semblance of solid sleep.  Still, every day I’d hear them clomp back and forth above my head and harbor exorbitant amounts of resentment.  It’s no small thing to feel your life is steered by someone else, to dread hearing them enter the building, to feel you have enemies, to miss something as mundane as the patter of rain putting you to sleep because you have to wear earplugs, which still doesn’t cancel out the sounds from above.

So anyway, this weekend was the big moveout.  It started Saturday night when we all got to bed at 2am (remember, I’m on their clock).  At 4am, we all got up so they could disassemble the remaining furniture with their power drill.   Attempting to go back to sleep was futile, so I got up and calmed myself by saying “they’re leaving now, they’re leaving now, they’re…”    That lasted about an hour until I couldn’t hold it in any longer.  I started slamming kitchen cabinet doors and yelled towards the ceiling “Fuckwads!”  It actually did make me feel better.  At 8am, I saw the moving truck and almost peed my pants with giddiness.

That night I slept like a baby, got 8 solid hours.  It was also the first time in 3 months where I didn’t wear earplugs.  I would have slept longer but the assholes returned in the morning to get more stuff.  I was cool with that knowing it was finally coming to an end.  Almost.

Wouldn’t you know, they came back to the apartment at 1:30am last night and tromped about for the next 2 hours, so I got back to sleep at around 3:30.

One thing you have to know is that throughout these last few months, I thought it might be me overreacting, that I’d built this into something bigger than it was because one of my mother’s main crazy “things” was that she was a highly paranoid person.  This whole bad scene was making me wonder if I was, indeed, becoming genuinely paranoid.

But no, today I was vindicated.   These were stuck to my door.

The “addict” part has to do with our fight in the hallway when they ganged up on me.  The guy said he had to smell my pot (I would blow it out the window, ironically not to bother anyone with it) to which I apologized profusely and said I wish he’d of knocked on my door and told me, I would have happily gone outside to do it.  But this was all moot anyway, because I’d already quit 2 weeks previously and told him so (though the downstairs bitch neighbor insisted I was lying ).  What a goat fuck.

So anyway, when I saw this on my door today, it was a release beyond my wildest dreams.  I hadn’t been angry for no reason, it wasn’t imaginary that I had enemies, they were real.  And now I’m free.

I saw the notes, laughed out loud, brought them inside, then went for my run.  For once in months, I didn’t need or want a warm-up mile, I just went. 7 miles @ 7:53.

Brighter days are ahead – of this, I am certain.