Grrr The Neighbors Grrr

So Jason and I have these upstairs neighbors. They’re punks. We try not to tick them off because we’d rather not have our cars keyed by them or a member of their hordes of friends who come over to party EVERY SINGLE NIGHT.

We have had to go up a few times to tell them to turn down their bass. We have also had to go upstairs while one of us waits with the car so one of them or their friends can move their cars enough to allow us to park. There are 6 parking spaces and 4 tenant cars (2 of ours, 2 of theirs). However, since one of the neighbors habitually parks diagonally, that takes us down to 5 spaces. Then their friends come over to party and they take whatever is left. So imagine how annoying it is to come home to a 6 parking space lot, of which you’re supposed to have 2 spots, and realize you have nowhere to park. Never mind that their friends can park on the empty street just as well as in the lot. The neighbors always apologize and turn the bass down or move their cars, but apologies mean nothing when you KEEP DOING IT.

After a particularly raucous night several months ago, the screen on the back door had a large gash in it. Another time we came home to a drawing of a p*n*s and some profanities scrawled lovingly to one of the guys upstairs. They have friends running in and out of there constantly and they do not walk softly up and down those stairs. Or in the apartment for that matter. Actually, I’m kind of convinced that they rearrange their furniture regularly based on the noises coming through the ceiling.

Another fun thing they do is mess up the laundry area in the basement with piles and piles of their clothes for days at a time. Their clothes will be everywhere and in order for us to do laundry we have to move their clothes out of the washer and/or dryer. I have personally removed damp clothes from the washer that had been there so long they seriously smelled of mold. Our landlady recently replaced the free, but broken, washer and dryer with new coin-op machines. It’s only 75 cents per wash and dry and I would gladly pay that for working machines just downstairs from us.

The pay factor seemed to have thwarted the neighbors’ laundry efforts for awhile. I figured they had just stopped doing laundry and were living surrounded by their own filth. However, this past week, they’ve started doing laundry again and, yes, I’ve had to move their clothes again.

So that brings us to yesterday evening. I came home from work and got ready to go to the gym. I figured I would start a load of wash before I left since I would only be gone a little longer than the wash cycle. I went downstairs and true to form, pulled some wet clothes out of the washer and started mine. When I came home AN HOUR LATER, the wet clothes I pulled out were still piled on top of the dryer. So I moved my stuff out of the washer and into the dryer (oh and unloaded the neighbor’s stone cold dry clothes from the dryer in the process).

I went down about 45 minutes later to get the clothes out of the dryer and found my still wet clothes piled on the dryer with the neighbor’s clothes now inside the dryer, churning away. On top of my clothes was a note from the neighbor that started with the line, “Sorry, but I was here first.” He finished it by saying, “PS I put in my own 75 cents.” Well, good for you. But I put in 75 cents too and you wasted it.

I was livid. After all we have put up with, especially with the laundry!

I flipped his note over and left him a note of my own in which I said, “Yes, you were here first, but I left the house for an hour and when I came back your clothes were in the exact same place. There have been many times when your clothes have been left down here for days. I had no way of knowing when you would be back.

I set a timer to let me know when I need to get my clothes out of the washer or dryer. Let’s agree that you will do the same thing or else you will not touch our clothes. We are not going to wait around indefinitely for you to get around to doing your laundry.”

What I really wanted to do was go upstairs and give him a good swift kick to the head.

And here’s the kicker. The sanctimonious brat LEFT while his clothes were in the dryer. He was gone for several hours and I once again had to move his stuff out of the way to dry mine, thus proving my point exactly.

I was fuming! You can ask Jason. Little punks! Who do they think they are? See, I’m getting angry again. And that kid owes me 75 cents.

Jason and I love our apartment and really hope we can wait them out. They have to graduate at some point, right…? Supposedly they go to Providence College, to which I say, Why are you living near Brown?! Wishful thinking? Housing is cheaper near Providence College so it doesn’t make much sense. I seriously doubt their student status though since they party every night and never sleep.

Unfortunately the rental market is pretty stagnant and even though the landlady knows most of what goes on, she’s not about to get rid of paying tenants. And it’s not like they’ve done anything evictable. They’ve just done their best to be large pains in our behinds.