Won't You Be My Neighbor?

I've had some interesting neighbors over the years. My very own first place was a condo in Anchorage, Alaska which shared a back wall and a side wall with other units. The people beside me kept to themselves but were always friendly in passing. The wife would go on drinking binges a few times a month which almost always involved yelling and throwing objects at the wall. The next day, her husband would apologize quietly for "...all of the noise last night." I always felt sorry for them both but especially for their daughter who had to live with it too.

The people to the back of me had about five kids living in a two bedroom unit and all five kids took a bath at the same time. There were times I thought they would come crashing through the wall from the way they would splash around so hard. I don't think they were there full time though because it wasn't a frequent occurrence and it was usually pretty funny when it did occur.

A year later I moved to an apartment that was above an entry way and below another apartment. The people above me had some serious relationship issues- there would be HUGE fights at all hours of the night with all kinds of expletives being thrown about. The scariest night was the one where apparently the girlfriend found out the boyfriend was cheating on her and when I say she was throwing furniture, I'm not even kidding. I heard bookshelves being toppled, things crashing to the floor, other items chucked at the walls and shattering; it was SCARY. Not long after that, one or both of them moved out of there because I didn't hear a peep out of that apartment again. I'm guessing they didn't last.

After Troy and I were married, we moved to Married Student Housing on LSU campus which was an adventure in and of itself. Our apartment was above another unit and at first, we had the place to ourselves. Then a small family moved in below- a husband and wife with their small toddler. Our biggest complaint with this family was the food they would cook. They were Korean and loved to make all kind of dishes involving seafood. The most disgusting thing ever was the Kimchi they would make. If you don't know what that is, thank your lucky stars.

There was a hole around our ventilation system that was covered by a thin piece of plywood. That was all that was separating our apartment from theirs. The horrible smells would come wafting up that hole and would turn my stomach. There was nothing we could do though, because not long after they moved in, they placed a sign on their apartment designating the father as the resident manager. Finally after one particularly bad evening where I had to leave the apartment because I just couldn't stand the stench, I had Troy go over to the lease office and file a complaint.

The next day, we got a note on our door from the people below. It said something to the effect of how we didn't need to "...report a stink on their house." The mother claimed that she was making a hard boiled egg for her son but had accidentally forgotten about it and left it boiling to help him go to sleep. She burned the egg and that was apparently what had caused the smell. Trust me when I say that it wasn't an egg that I was smelling.

The smells didn't cease after that {unfortunately} so eventually the lease office sent out maintenance to try and cover the hole. They did the best they could which blocked out about 95% of the stench that would collect in our place but every once in a while...whoo whee!

After doing the Married Student Housing deal for almost a year, we moved to New Orleans and had a whole new batch of interesting neighbors. Not only did we get to deal with quirky neighbors, we also battled leaking roofs after Hurricane Katrina, smoke detectors that would go off from the excess water and maintenance who let themselves in whenever they liked with spare keys at random times. Don't even get me started about the foreign construction workers that didn't speak English that they would send to my place when Peyton and I were by ourselves. Good times.

We had Saints football players live to the side of us for a while and that was always a perpetual party nearly every night. There were guys below us that had different girls over every night- and they weren't playing Scrabble. I think that the apartment the Saint's players were in was a corporate apartment because no one lived there for longer than three months at a time, so we always had new and unusual neighbors every couple of months.

Then on the second floor, there was a couple that we dubbed "the smokers" because they were always outside smoking cigarettes or marijuana. They had crazy fights Jerry Springer style where the guy would almost run the girl over in his Escalade just to peel out of the parking lot. They also enjoyed screaming matches and it was usually so loud that I could hear it from the third floor and that was one floor down and one apartment over! Sometimes one of them would throw a folding chair that they would use to sit on and smoke with outside in the pool out front. I would call Troy at work and tell him, "They're at it again!" when I saw their red chair resting at the bottom of the pool.

Right now, we have a door slammer and his wife below us. They are nice people and are pretty quiet- the quietest apartment I think I've ever been in, except for the door slamming. It always scares the dickens out of me because I never know when to expect it. We'll be moving soon so I don't let it get to me- and they are quiet when it's time to go to bed so I really can't complain.

So, although it's always irritating while you're living with it, it's always funny when you look back on all of these quirky people that you shared walls with. Hopefully I won't have to share walls with anyone for a long time again, but it makes me wonder what our house neighbors will be like. Is it too much to ask for normal neighbors? Is there any such thing?!

What about you- have you had any interesting neighbors in the past?