Jun 29 2008
Condo Life - No thanks
This is a rant, overreaction? Maybe.
If this place is indicative of most condos, I’ll live in a tent and I don’t do tents. I don’t mind being quiet, I really don’t. I have headphones if I get the urge to rock out to music. I understand they don’t want anyone to move in on a Sunday, so we didn’t. The tile floors are the comfortable ones, so I walk barefoot most of the day, I don’t wear spike heels. Though Leon has never understood how I could belly dance with light foot and walk with such thundering steps; neither have I.
We were told one specific person beneath us complained about the woman that lived here before. We were also told that he wanted to date her and she wouldn’t and it was insinuated that was why he complained about her so often: took too many showers and vacuumed too late at night. An alert went up in my little head, but the lease had been signed and he had been “made to seem an old man who wanted to date a 30 something and was spurned - and he didn’t like it.”
Last night we dropped something. Today we got up after 7, turned on TV quietly, put light bulbs in the bathroom (she only left us one that worked out of four), later he unscrewed the grungy shower head and screwed our new one back in. We did not even take a shower because we were going to the old apartment to clean and were taking a shower afterward there. Then we got dressed, grabbed our stuff and left. Tonight we were putting a few things away, knocked something over. Phone rang, the landlord.
She had been told we were hammering at 6:30 this morning. We were still in bed then and no hammering of any kind was going on. We were reminded we can “do what we want” during the week, but not on the weekend. (*That is only partially true, rules say this is a quiet place, so anything we want would NOT fly.)
Leon is the more temperamental of us under normal circumstances, though I am catching up, and this is one time I am the angry one. I sincerely would prefer to just get out of the lease and move now — before we get our love seat and dining stuff, before we get things put away, before the man really makes me mad and I say something ruder than I intended (or really meant, but another person would have left unsaid).
Poor Leon did not want to hear me say that. He can only see having to move this stuff again, plus the desks, bookcase, and filing drawers we had delivered that still have to be assembled. He sees that and dollar signs and hunting for another place to live.
I see a year of pure unadulterated misery if we stay and have to watch our every move twenty-four hours a day. I may love the beach, but since I can’t take the heat out there except for daybreak on the cooler days of summer, I am more than willing to give it up, it is not like it is my primary dream, not like it is the only choice we have — but how do you get out of a lease…
Maybe we will go downstairs and introduce ourselves, but I would want unbiased witnesses present since I heard he used to come up and bug the woman repeatedly to go out with him; who knows what he would accuse us of saying.
Cynical? Me? Yes. I suppose many condos and apartments and housing associations have their resident complainer, but did we have to move above one?
Yes, I am ranting and perhaps overreacting, but we really don’t need what this other woman went through on top of the stress of the house not selling. And even as I write that, I feel guilty for saying it. At least we have the money to pay the house payment… I know how lucky we are in so many ways. I know that we may actually eventually be able to put some money away for real retirement. I know that I have many dreams and am content with just a few of them. I know that above all I am so lucky to have the relationship I do with Leon. So, I’m going to TRY to deal with this without constant ranting, but tonight, I just haven’t got it in me. I’ve heard too many stories about condos…
And once we buy lamps so we can actually see in this room, is he going to complain I am lighting up his window too much at 8:00 p.m. — from the light spilling out our window above?
And just for the record, we won’t go out of our way to frustrate him, so he should count himself lucky some of the people I’ve met over the years aren’t living here, because they would.
3 responses so far
I have been so lucky in the condo…we do have some frustrations but none compared to your situation. We own all three levels…no one above, no one below. One neighbor is nice and we get along really well. The people on the other side are only here a few days a month. And we live in the northwest…does that make a difference? I think it might. But who knows. Certainly not me. We have had bad experiences with neighbors so I do know what you are saying. A condo near the beach and a jerk for a neighbor…life is just not fair!!!
b
b’s last blog post..A Day of Gratitude
That sounds terrible .. good call putting the ranting on the blog, very therapeutic I’d bet
Brian Pearson’s last blog post..Not Even the42 Can Do This
Oh my word, I read from back to front! I had no idea that you were having trouble with a complainer! I hated the year I was in an apartment. I got upstairs for the “security,” and had to quit walking on my Nordic Track because of the people below. Oh man…this is just the pits!
This Eclectic Life’s last blog post..Anticipation