Hating Thy Neighbor

Apologies to one and all for my super slackerness this week. Drunching all day Sunday (whewww Bloody Mary’s) and no work Monday means no bloggies until Thursday apparently!



Well that and the fact that I’ve been sort of sleepless.

You see, I’ve got a case of the un-neighborly neighbs. It’s been rough.

Apartments in New York City are among the few things in life where you actually do get what you ask for. Millions of people sequestered in 22-ish square miles is complete madness. 

And while I do, in fact, adore this madness that is my life, I abhor the ridiculously close quarters we must keep with perfect strangers. Some of them, at least.

Dear Bible. Dear André. I disagree with you both. I do not deem it my duty to “love thy neighbor”. Nor do I want to lend him any of my sugar.

My neighbors are ca-razy and ru-uuuude.
The apartment complex I live in now - while lovely and adorable in a Melrose Place kind of way - is also unfortunately home to the worst NYC demographic degenerates: Old-school rent controlled grouchpots and still-in-school NYU kiddies.

Let’s start with the former, shall we?

Sure, we young professional types descended upon this city like the plague a few decades back. It was a modern day white person vs. Native American drama - but instead of bleeding flesh, the indigenous peeps bled money.

Rents reached exorbitant amounts - amounts that no one except folks in finance can really afford to pay. Same as now.
Unless, of course, the exilees were fortunate enough to abide in a rent-stabilized abode - like some of the units at my complex, 224 Sullivan Street.
Lucky for them...unlucky for us youngins. Not only does our resentment flame burn every time we see one of these ancient relics (their rent check often has two fewer 0’s), but we feel our well-being endangered. These old folks are kooky.
Let it be known that I have more compassion for elderly people than I do for anyone on the planet (except perhaps animals). But...but.
There’s a elderly gay man who lets his 15 year old (blind, deaf) Springer Spaniel roam the first floor hallway - and relieve herself as needed.
There’s an old cat lady who seems to think the hallway is her own personal closet. She has stored, among other things, a ginormous suitcase at the top of the stairs that I, in turn, bumped into every single time I carried something up.
But the worst of the worst is the old hunchbacked man who lives above me. He has a mullet and wears the same 80s warmup suit (which was obviously the last time he bothered showering) every day. And it is obvious that that was the last decade he bothered to shower.
The first time I saw him struggling up the stairs, my heart broke. But a few weeks later me and a bunch of my friends were walking through the courtyard and he screamed at us, “WHO ARE YOU, I DON’T RECOGNIZE YOU, WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE????”

Imagine my dismay when I learned that scary-druggie-biker dude lives right.above.me. And the sheer horror when I discovered he’s a bonafide nocturnal lunatic.
He’s paces his squeaky old floor like a ghost rattling chains in the attic. He drags furniture all over his 12 x 14 space - rearranging what, I do not know. He drops what I believe to be a sack of potatoes, picks it up, and drops it again. And his favorite time to do all of this is 4 am.
As if the elephant hunchback isn’t bad enough, the college kids below and next door to me seemingly exist to make my Greenwich Village residence even more miserable.
Bass-heavy music all night long. Alarm clocks shrieking till 2 pm on the weekends. Bottles in the hallways. Skunky weed smoke snaking under my door. Good LORD, one of them even had the audacity to ask if he could “steal my internet.” Umm. No.

I guess when it’s down to the wire, though, I do relate more to the collegiate partiers than the geriatric psychos.