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Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood
First, let me say, in the spirit of counting one's blessings before getting on to cataloguing the curses: I really do like my apartment. It's got a study for me (although I never use it, really - somewhere along the way, I've turned into a work-on-the-couch kinda girl, but my beautiful, jam packed bookshelves are there), and it's got a balcony where D. smokes his cigarettes and stares off into the distance - great for summer storm watching, and also to hang up the party twinkly lights, and I, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
magnetgirl + boyfriend and faris_nallaneen all painted the walls a gorgeous pale green and dark brown and a sort of goldy-cream & we hung fawn/silver striped curtains. It's a very nice flat, especially for NYC.
BUT THE NEIGHBORS. Oh my god.
Not all of them, I hasten to add. Not the lovely Greek family who lives on the left. They are awesome, and also, the lady of the house is the VP of the co-op board, and her very charming, old, grandfatherly husband is so great; always waits till I get my door unlocked in the hallway, as if wanting to be there to help me if I need it - not sure what he could do in an emergency, since he looks to have the approximate tensile strength of a dry, thin twig, but it's very thoughtful and sweet. There's also a young sorta Rastafarian couple down the hall, who seem cool but keep themselves to themselves. The Asian family down the hall, also perfectly respectable.
BUT JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ON A CRACKER - everyone else. Let me see.
First: Stalker Dave, who used to make a habit of ringing our buzzer @ 3am, asking to be let in. Now I am often up at that hour, but really. Also, kept leaving me excessively odd notes, and the odd plant, and coming out into the hallway whenever I opened my door, making small talk while I waited for the elevator, and then going back into his apartment. Maybe if you had a Southern accent, buddy, I could've bought that, but you don't. Told me I "saved his life" because he "was making pasta when [he] shouldn't have been" and had to take the pot outside, and forgot his keys. ???? At 4 am. Yeah. It was weird. D.'s still pretty adamant on getting a baseball bat (since I put my foot down on the gun issue).
Second. Dude down the hall is convinced that the phantom smell of cigarette smoke that lingers in the hallway is us, smoking in our apartment that, for the record, we own, and keeps putting "Quit smoking" propaganda under our door, so that sometimes we can't actually get the door open because of the wedge. Also hanging up HUGE posterboard signs in the hallway, with our apartment # on them, with gigantic notes requesting us to quit smoking. Today I came home to this gem:
NATURALLY no signature, because if you're going to do something like that, why not be a fucking anonymous coward about it, eh? I've complained to the mgmt about this guy, and they were very nice, and say that he's done this to other folk, and I actually thought he'd *ahem* quit doing it after the last time, but apparently not. I don't know what the hell they can do to stop it, but it is incredibly infuriating, ESPECIALLY since, as you may recall, D. (who is the smoker, I have maybe 4 cigarettes a year) always smokes either on the balcony (as aforesaid) or sometimes in inclement weather, by a window with the fan blowing out. Not that it matters, because not even if we stood in our foyer and blew smoke out the door crack into the hallway on purpose, would this guy have a leg to stand on. Also, remember the nice Greek family I mentioned before? The nice grandfatherly gentleman had a heart bypass just before we moved here, and according to his wife [the co-op VP], no longer smokes. We learned this when she was very kindly expressing her sympathies for the harassment. Of course, it came as something of a surprise to us to hear this, because we see him in the stairwell in front of our apartment all the time, smoking on the sly. Now of course we're not going to blow up this nice old man's spot; it's his heart, after all, and he can do what he likes. BUT IT IS SO AGGRAVATING. Just the sight of one of these notes now has the effect of sending me into a fucking tizzy of pissed offness.
ARGH.
magnetgirl + boyfriend and faris_nallaneen all painted the walls a gorgeous pale green and dark brown and a sort of goldy-cream & we hung fawn/silver striped curtains. It's a very nice flat, especially for NYC.BUT THE NEIGHBORS. Oh my god.
Not all of them, I hasten to add. Not the lovely Greek family who lives on the left. They are awesome, and also, the lady of the house is the VP of the co-op board, and her very charming, old, grandfatherly husband is so great; always waits till I get my door unlocked in the hallway, as if wanting to be there to help me if I need it - not sure what he could do in an emergency, since he looks to have the approximate tensile strength of a dry, thin twig, but it's very thoughtful and sweet. There's also a young sorta Rastafarian couple down the hall, who seem cool but keep themselves to themselves. The Asian family down the hall, also perfectly respectable.
BUT JESUS FUCKING CHRIST ON A CRACKER - everyone else. Let me see.
First: Stalker Dave, who used to make a habit of ringing our buzzer @ 3am, asking to be let in. Now I am often up at that hour, but really. Also, kept leaving me excessively odd notes, and the odd plant, and coming out into the hallway whenever I opened my door, making small talk while I waited for the elevator, and then going back into his apartment. Maybe if you had a Southern accent, buddy, I could've bought that, but you don't. Told me I "saved his life" because he "was making pasta when [he] shouldn't have been" and had to take the pot outside, and forgot his keys. ???? At 4 am. Yeah. It was weird. D.'s still pretty adamant on getting a baseball bat (since I put my foot down on the gun issue).
Second. Dude down the hall is convinced that the phantom smell of cigarette smoke that lingers in the hallway is us, smoking in our apartment that, for the record, we own, and keeps putting "Quit smoking" propaganda under our door, so that sometimes we can't actually get the door open because of the wedge. Also hanging up HUGE posterboard signs in the hallway, with our apartment # on them, with gigantic notes requesting us to quit smoking. Today I came home to this gem:
Apt. # [redacted],
Please stop smoking inside the apt. It can be smelt from the 2nd floor stairwell + and is most strong in front of your apt,.. If Apt. [redacted] can quit smoking, you can too. It is best for all concerned, including most of all, you. OR request door jamb smoke excluders from the mgmt.
NATURALLY no signature, because if you're going to do something like that, why not be a fucking anonymous coward about it, eh? I've complained to the mgmt about this guy, and they were very nice, and say that he's done this to other folk, and I actually thought he'd *ahem* quit doing it after the last time, but apparently not. I don't know what the hell they can do to stop it, but it is incredibly infuriating, ESPECIALLY since, as you may recall, D. (who is the smoker, I have maybe 4 cigarettes a year) always smokes either on the balcony (as aforesaid) or sometimes in inclement weather, by a window with the fan blowing out. Not that it matters, because not even if we stood in our foyer and blew smoke out the door crack into the hallway on purpose, would this guy have a leg to stand on. Also, remember the nice Greek family I mentioned before? The nice grandfatherly gentleman had a heart bypass just before we moved here, and according to his wife [the co-op VP], no longer smokes. We learned this when she was very kindly expressing her sympathies for the harassment. Of course, it came as something of a surprise to us to hear this, because we see him in the stairwell in front of our apartment all the time, smoking on the sly. Now of course we're not going to blow up this nice old man's spot; it's his heart, after all, and he can do what he likes. BUT IT IS SO AGGRAVATING. Just the sight of one of these notes now has the effect of sending me into a fucking tizzy of pissed offness.
ARGH.