Today we visited our house, our very first house. Hubby and I have lived in various apartments since we graduated from college nearly ten years ago. We close at the end of this month. Very exciting, very overwhelming. We took measurements and tried to place furniture in our minds. We need to look at paint cards and buy a lawn mower. It’s like we’ve been college kids for years, living on a budget in small apartments. We’ve been kids with kids. But look at us now! A house, life insurance policies; we’re so very adult. It’s been a long time coming.

I’ll tell you what I won’t miss - apartment neighbors. I would say one of the main reasons I have wanted us to buy us a house so much has been to get away from crappy neighbors. Yes, I realize it is possible to have crappy neighbors in a nice neighborhood, and that in many ways it is worse because you are stuck with them when you own a home. But I think nothing can compare to sharing walls (or floors, or ceilings) with really bad neighbors. We’ve had some really “special” people surrounding us in our years of apartment living. It’s always something that’s really difficult to deal with when the people who live around you are bothersome. You can’t really do much for fear you will make things worse, and then they are still your neighbors, just now they hate you for say, calling the cops, writing a letter to their landlord, etc.

Usually I resort to writing letters in my head to make me feel better. I’ve told these people off repeatedly in my mind, drafting letters to be stuck on their door for them to find, but I never actually do the sticking. Perhaps I can find some closure if I get them out of my head and share them here. So, from our most inoffensive bad neighbors to the ones that I will truly never forget, I give you part one of a series of “Letters to My Bad Neighbors.”

Dear Dude and Wife Upstairs,

We hear you. We hear everything you do.

Wife, how can you stand your husband’s laugh? How can you hear it, day after day? The high pitched, hyena-like cackle: wuuuuuhp (a sharp scoop of roughly an octave here) buhp buhp buhp buhp buhp. Tell me, exactly how much pot are you guys smoking each day because WOW, it’s gotta be a lot.

I have to tell you that you guys are not nearly as good at Rock Band/Guitar Hero as you think you are. Practice has not made you any better either. Your rendition of Black Hole Sun has not improved with time. Although, I must say, I would rather hear your stoned, tone-deaf incantations than feel our apartment shake each time you dropped a bomb in your previous air strike game that you played for twelve hour sessions every Saturday.

I think it is safe to say that if I can tell you what movie you are watching just from hearing the soundtrack through my ceiling (Gladiator, by the way), that it might be a tad too loud.

Can’t say we’ll miss you, I just hope we get out of here before you get yourselves a Wii.

The fam downstairs

Labels: House, Tales