My Apartment Top Ten List

With the big move this week, I present the top 10 things I will miss about my apartment complex after residing her for five years.

10. Tweetle Dee and Tweedle Dum and The Village Idiot Better known as the office staff of the complex. Besides being incapable of answering a single question I have asked over the years, they have chosen to argue with me over the definition of vacate, every contract and fee that has come up, and insisted on me calling the police on their problem clientele which is not good customer service.

9. The Ice Skating Ring With winter I came to expect the parking lot and sidewalks to be covered in ice so I could slip while walking the dog. The dog walk was located at the exact spot that the snow removal trucks dumped the extra snow which shows some forward thinking. So I regularly slipped but kept upright, until that fateful day when I fell from the sidewalk and into the street, ending with a visit to the doc. And then there was the winter that we had the lovely ice sculptor in the middle of the main street caused by a broken water main that didn't get repaired for months.

8. Maintenance of ? I still have two lights out in my bathroom. According to the complex, I haven't tightened the bulbs enough. According to me, there is an electrical short. Then there was the worker who yelled, I mean truly shouted at me, because he managed to unclog the toilet in a minute. He ignored my protests that I had plunged, dumped water, etc. for hours before calling. There was also the "repaired" roof on my first apartment, where no one ever went up on the roof, but the water stains on my ceiling and wall were painted over instead. And we can't forget the numerous times I caught the maintenance guy sitting on my back steps smoking and talking on his phone instead of oh, working on something like the workout facility which was guaranteed to have one broken machine or on a good day, no functional machines.

7. Oddities Jackie, who monitored all activity in the building, and her dog, Mabel, who peed on everything in sight. The family who lived in the one bedroom. Mr. Indoor Voice parking his motorcycle in the hallway and Laundry Guy working on his motorcycle in the guest room. The window ac unit added on the nice townhouse. The huge structure built for Edie's garden.

6. Noises and Smells Mr. Smokey uses some bitter tobacco which infiltrates my apartment on a regular basis along with listening to his Skype conversations with people in Japan. The surround sound woman liked to scare me to death with booming explosions that shook my bed in the middle of the night, but she also held legendary and police-invoking arguments. Mr. Indoor Voice did not know how to talk in anything lower than a booming tone and yes, he had plenty of conversations while in the bathroom. Grill Guy used to talk on his cell phone while barbecuing in January and his language skills did not extend past shit and fuck.

5. Crazy Neighbors I've had the lady who insisted on blasting her surround sound system until 5 am, the family of four in a one bedroom, the pot smoking crazy who weekly had a bonfire burning in the middle of January, the family who set their house on fire, and the crazies who insisted on banging on the workout facility door while screaming at Becky or I to let them in.

4. Overly Friendly Neighbors Mr. South Africa who always wanted me to visit to view his photography, Laundry Guy who invited me to a doggie playdate in the middle of the night, and Mr. Indoor Voice who would stand in front of my window which faces the back of the complex.

3. Neighbors Who Threw Things The college guys who threw beer bottles over the balcony every weekend, Mr. Indoor Voice who regularly tossed clothing over the balcony, and the neighbor who threw up outside my patio, leaving a trail towards my door.

2. Exhibitionists Those neighbors who love to leave their blinds open and provide me with lots of fodder. Laundry Guy and his growing list of tattoos and odd projects and Mr. Smokey and his habit of sleeping with the lights on or dressing in the morning (I'll never be able to erase that image)in full view of his window.

1. The One Thing I'll Miss - Becky! Becky has been the reason I have stayed at this complex for so long. She is truly an amazing friend and neighbor. The time I broke my elbow and the pharmacy gave me a child-proof bottle, Becky answered my knock and took care of things, including opening my other bottle caps; she has watched or walked B on more occasions than I care to count, and she taught me how to pot my plants. We have spent hours watching movies and tv together. And of course, on those horrible occasions when one of us desperately needs a friend in the middle of the night, we have done the late-night cry. So, honestly the only thing I'll miss about my apartment is living across the hall from Becky.