Memory Lane Monday: More Tales From My Shit-Hole Apartment

Remember that story about my crazy neighbor when I lived alone? Well, I think her twin lives downstairs from us now. I've never met her, I've never even set eyes on her. But I know she's there based on the number phone calls Boyfriend gets from our senile landlord telling us "the lady downstairs says there's too much noise" coming from our apartment. I've done hours of online research, I've looked up our local and state noise ordinances, and asked around and I can find nothing that we are doing wrong. This issue has been on-going and it upsets Boyfriend and me so much that we are having trouble sleeping over it. I'm so furious I can barely write about it. This lady is relentless in her complaints. We don't even really know what it is we're doing that pisses her off so much. I have a theory that it's me and my new workout regimen.

A couple of weeks ago I decided that I was tired of feeling like a lazy chunker who sits at home all day. I wasn't satisfied with how my body looked and I've been self-conscious about my stomach pudge for years. In high school and through most of college, I had washboard abs simply from strict breathing exercises in choir and theatre, and body movement techniques and yoga. I had a smaller frame even after puberty, and I didn't really eat a lot. I wasn't anorexic, but I was just a bit of a picky eater and I mostly ate on a schedule because of school and extra-curricular activities. Then my depression and anxiety spiraled out of control after my sophomore year of college. I would go through phases where I would deliberately go long hours without eating until my blood sugar got super low that I would nearly pass out. Then I would just binge on anything and everything, mostly carbs. I didn't eat a lot of protein. My diet consisted of sandwiches, pizza, rice, ice cream, and lots and lots of alcohol. I didn't exercise except for walking about 3 blocks to work or classes. I felt horrible about myself. I was angry all the time. Angry at myself, angry at the world, angry angry angry.

You know, like this.

Often, I would wake up in the morning and not feel like going to class. I would lie in bed hitting the snooze button and restlessly snoozing trying to decided whether or not to go to class. More often than not, the inner demons won and I would either sleep in and miss class entirely or I would convince myself that I was sick and needed to stay home. Then a dirty lying guilt spiral would happen. I would feel horrible. I felt guilty that I disappointed my professor(s) by missing class. I felt like I disappointed my parents by not trying harder. I felt disappointed in myself for being terrible at everything.

Short story long, I gained a gross amount of weight my last year of college. At my heaviest in high school, I weighed around 105 pounds. By the time I left college, at my heaviest, I tipped the scales at 145 pounds. Blech. I was pushing the "normal weight" on the BMI scale big time. Through improving my diet and a battle with severe gross-mouth-won't-let-you-eat-itis last year, I lost enough weight that I no longer felt super chunky and gross. But I decided recently that that was not enough. I wanted to be more fit. Enter my new daily workout: the Just Dance franchise on the Wii.

Don't judge me, it's fun.

You may laugh, but it's worked really well for me; I've lost 4 pounds so far, I feel like I have more energy, I feel like I have better stamina, and I just feel better in general. I totally recommend it for anyone (especially other gamers) who want to get in better shape but have serious gym anxiety like me. Short-story-long: I do my Wii workout for about 45-60 minutes every day, and I've been feeling great. Unfortunately, the crazy lady who lives downstairs is not so happy. 

If you are unfamiliar with the Just Dance franchise, it is very different than DDR in that there is no dance pad that you stomp on; it's mostly moving your arms and upper body,  so, you can play it while just standing in place. To reiterate: no stomping is involved. No jumping has to be involved. Very little foot movement is involved. In fact, when I play it, I tend to just stand in place with my feet shoulder-width apart and move my feet as little as possible since we have limited space in our living area. Well, apparently this is just too damn much for crazy train downstairs. My dancing for an hour each day around noon bothers her to the extent that she feels the need to call our landlord to complain, instead of getting off her lazy ass and knocking on our door and being neighborly, asking, "Hey, the floorboards squeak too much, could you keep it down?" 
(To which I would ever-so-politely inform her that it is the middle of the day and I am partaking in no illegal or noise-ordinance-violating activities and would she be ever so kind as to pull the stick out of her ass and go fuck herself with it? Kthxbai. But I'd at least be neighborly about it.) 

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There should never be this much stress in an apartment when video games and fitness  are involved, you guys. *Sigh* Four more months and we're out of this shit hole.

Memory Lane Monday: The Saga of the Couch That Refused to Leave Part Deux

If you didn't read Part 1 of the Saga of the Couch That Refused to Leave, that's ok, it's not really vital to this part of the story, but it will make you understand that this is an ongoing saga, and not just a strange thing that happened one night. 
Anywho, on with Part 2!

Boyfriend and I are getting close to turning the big 3-0 (he's closer than I am, bwahaha.) When that happens, you start to think about "childish" parts of your life that may need to fall by the wayside to make room for new "more adult" practices (that wasn't meant to sound dirty.) One of those practices is moving. When you're young or in college you tend to move a lot. It's usually easy to bribe friends or loved ones to help you move with the promise of free pizza and beer. But, at a certain age you start to say to yourself, "I want to help my friends, but I reeeeeeeeeally don't want to do any heavy lifting" and pizza and beer bribes are no longer effective. That is one reason why Boyfriend and I said SCREW THIS when moving out of our Park Slope apartment into our current one. We made the greatest decision and investment of our lives: we hired professional movers. We are never not doing that again. They loaded everything into a truck and moved it across town and up 4 flights of stairs into the new apartment. Among these items moved was our loyal, comfy Big Purple Couch. I don't know how the movers got Big Purple Couch up the 4 flights of very narrow stairs, but they did.

Our movers were even more awesome than-OHMYGODNOTHINGISAWESOMERTHANTHIS!

Nearing the end of our first year in our current apartment, we noticed that the cushions on Big Purple Couch were sinking lower and lower. It was getting to a point where Big Purple Couch was not as comfy as it once was. Our backs and backsides were suffering. So much so, that we started talking about getting a new couch. It was almost as if the couch new what we were talking about because only a week after we first mentioned getting a new couch, Boyfriend sat down one afternoon and we heard a loud metal twang followed by the crunching of wood from inside the couch. Upon investigation it was apparent that Big Purple Couch would definitely need replacing. Two of the metal coil/zig-zaggy springs that gave support had completely snapped, most likely due to years of Boyfriend flopping down on the cushions with all of his weight couch old age.

Serendipitously, Boyfriend's boss had an unused couch in storage and offered to loan it to us until the time came when he forgot he owned it needed it again.  Boyfriend rented a truck and offered to pay our recently unemployed friend, Matt some money to help him move the new couch in and the Big Purple Couch out. The new couch was a light pistachio in color and thankfully came with a beige cover. It was also a pull-out couch. If you've never tried to move a pull-out couch, they are heavy. Imagine trying to lift a couch while your friend is sitting on it, if your friend weighed as mush as a folded up mattress surrounded by metal. It's kind of like that. Boyfriend and Matt amazingly got the new Pistachio Couch up 4 flights of stairs and into our apartment where I was waiting with plenty of water, tea, beer, etc. That was the hard part...or so we all thought.

Throughout the evening I had been making jokes about how everything in life could relate back to an episode of Friends (remember that show? I feel old.) As the boys were moving the heavy-ass Pistachio couch up the stairs, I was annoying entertaining them with a review of the Friends episode that fit this situation: The One With the Cop, in which Ross buys a new sofa and can't get it up the stairs. Hilarity ensues. (PIVOT!)

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After getting our "new" couch into the apartment, Matt and Boyfriend picked up the much lighter Big Purple Couch to take it downstairs to put on the street for the trash truck. But, Big Purple Couch had other plans. Getting down the stairs was much more of a struggle than expected. It was as if the stairwell got narrower and narrower the further down they went. Or as if the couch deliberately expanded itself. The boys struggled but managed to squeeze Big Purple Couch down the stairwell, until they got to the very last turn to the outside door. There was some sort of electrical box on the wall in the corner on the first flight of stairs blocking the couch. Matt and Boyfriend struggled and pushed and heaved and finagled for an hour. An. HOUR. It was not possible to get the couch down the stairs, which made absolutely no sense to us since the movers were able to get it up the stairs. Our tiny exhausted minds were blown as the oh-no-what-are-we-going-to-do-with-an-extra-couch-now thoughts began to sink in. We eventually hypothesized that when the springs had snapped, the couch frame expanded just enough to prevent it from fitting back down the stairs. We took the couch back up to our apartment to have a drink break and a brainstorming session.

Brilliant idea #1: We had roof access. We could take Big Purple Couch up to the roof until we could come up with a solution to getting it out of the building, like getting more people to help and maybe some ropes to lower down to the ground floor from the roof. This plan was quickly dashed when I discovered the assholes who own our building had installed an alarm and deadbolt on the door to the roof. 
To quote a wise man, Bobby Singer: Balls.

I love that our emergency exit is dead-bolted shut with a rusty latch. I feel so safe.

The hour was growing late and Matt had things to do and Boyfriend had to return the rented truck. And we were running out of options. Big Purple Couch could not stay in our apartment; we had absolutely no room. The roof was not an option. Our apartment was not an option. The hallway was not an option. In a fit of delirium brilliance that rivaled the first part of the Big Purple Couch's saga, I suggested something unthinkable that is a perfect example of life imitating art. 

Brilliant Idea #2: Like Ross, we would have to cut the couch into halves.  It was sad and hilarious at the same time. While we loved Big Purple Couch, it had died and we had no other choice. We had passed the point of no return. Armed with nothing more than a hand saw and pliers (and for the record, I do believe we are the only New Yorkers who own tools) Boyfriend and Matt successfully performed the couch-ectomy. It was loud. It was messy. It was exhausting.  For them, I'm sure. I just stood around and watched.

And documented the travesty of course

And yes, I am well aware of the ironic hilarity of the entire situation. The fact that this ridiculousness was a success can only prove that the universe has a sick and wicked sense of humor, and is a Friends fan. 

Men at work

Here ends the saga of the Big Purple Couch. It was a loved couch. It was a loyal couch. It was a warm couch. Literally. It was made of some sort of corduroy blend and that shit held heat in the summertime. 

But, as all things, it too had to have an end. As Boyfriend told me the other day when I was afraid this story had too sad of an ending for anyone other than me to find it funny: "It was a good couch, but its insides broke and we had to put it down. It was best for all involved." And this is why I love him. He will slay a dying couch for me and make me laugh when I wax nostalgic about it.

Bye-bye couch

fin

Memory Lane Monday: The Saga of the Couch That Refused to Leave Part 1

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Boyfriend and I will have been living together for 4 years this April. It's been a long and exhausting adventure, but a fun one, too. When we decided to live together, we were both living in separate apartments in the same Queens neighborhood and I was desperate to leave my studio (though I can't for a second imagine why) and Boyfriend's roommate situation was on a downward spiral so we decided to go for it. While we both enjoyed our neighborhood in Astoria, we had both gotten jobs at the same restaurant in Brooklyn, so we decided to switch Burroughs to cut down on the commute time. Boyfriend found a delightful little 2nd floor apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn that was a 20-30 minute commute to work (vs our 60-90 minute commute from Queens.) The apartment was a 5 minute walk from the subway and a 10-ish minute walk to Prospect Park, we also had a back deck and a dishwasher. There was just enough room for us, all of our stuff, and my ferret, Dusty, and all of his stuff. It was going to be great.

Then came moving day. We had a plethora of friends willing to help us in shifts to move both of our apartments. We started with Boyfriend's apartment because we had volunteer friends plus his roommates to assist, which was good because he had most of the heavy furniture, including the Big Purple Couch. Boyfriend acquired Big Purple Couch from Craigslist about 2 years before we met. It was a good couch. A comfy couch.  A loyal couch. 

Perhaps too loyal. 

Anyone who has ever moved themselves or helped a friend move, hopefully knows that when loading a moving truck, to put the large furniture in first and the smaller furniture or boxes in last. Being smart and experienced packers/movers we put in Boyfriend's mattress, box spring, and bed frame in the truck first. Logically, next we would load up the couch. Big Purple Couch had lived in 2 different apartments with Boyfriend, and now we were moving it to a third. Apparently Big Purple Couch was upset about this. When Boyfriend and his soon-to-be-former roommates tried to finagle Big Purple Couch down the stairs to the street to load it in the truck, they couldn't get the couch down the stairs. It was as if the stairs/hallway had narrowed or the couch had grown of their own accord. They tried for almost an hour to get the couch out. They couldn't understand it. They had all gotten Big Purple Couch inside the apartment, why was it not leaving? 

Clearly, Big Purple couch had grown very attached to this apartment and was unhappy about departing. I can't blame it, it wasn't a bad place, aside from the crazy neighbors downstairs who blared their stereo so loudly that it shook the building every Saturday morning at 7am. If Boyfriend and I had the means, we would have just lived there. But, I digress...

Suddenly someone had the brilliant(?) idea to try to take the couch out side on the balcony and gently(?) lower it down to someone to "catch" it on the sidewalk, then the guys upstairs would sprint down to help lower it to the ground and load it in the truck. They all shared that look they give each other when they are about to do something that is equal parts suicidally insane and brilliant. So, without ropes or pulleys or equipment of any kind, proceeded to do just that. I wish I was joking. I do not have a picture of this happening, but to me watching from the street, it looked a little like this:

Boyfriend got to "catch" because he's the tallest.

Much to the relief of my already stressed-out-and-anxiety-riddled brain, this insane scheme actually worked quite beautifully. No one died. No one broke their neck. No one so much as even chipped a nail participating in this dangerous and not recommended feat of idiocy genius that Boyfriend and his/our friends are notorious for.

This scenario ended happily with minimal stress that moving yourself will allow. Moving is always a bitch. Moving 2 apartments in one day with dwindling help as the hours go on, is a bitch of a bitch. Add a small live animal and a stubborn self-aware piece of furniture...well, you get the idea. It was a long damn day.  But, Big Purple Couch, Boyfriend, Dusty, and I all lived comfortably in our new Brooklyn apartment full of movie watching and video game playing. Big Purple Couch was even there when Dusty eventually left us to join his brother and sister. Thanks, Big Purple Couch. Thanks for being a comfy warm safe space for Boyfriend and I to hold Dusty in his final hours on Earth. 
As I said, a loyal couch.

But then, a couple years later (after yet another move back to Queens) Big Purple Couch started to show its age and began to die. It came to a point where we had to discuss the inevitable need for a new couch. And Big Purple Couch was not pleased...

To Be Continued

Memory Lane Monday: My Shithole Apartment Part 8

This post is a little later in the day than usual. I'm having some trouble being funny this week, if I ever was to begin with. I think we can all understand. 

I may not have mentioned this in my lamenting over losing my 9-5 job, but  I do have a part-time job in addition to any acting gigs I can snag. I work as a promoter for different Broadway and Off-Broadway shows. Some people call it a "ticket barker" but I basically hand out flyers/coupons advertising different shows and I spend a lot of time in Times Square (*shudder*) and around tourists. It's not the most glamorous job in the world, but it gets me by. I mention this because this week I was starting to freak out a little (in case you hadn't noticed) that my current situation was beginning to mirror my situation about 4 years ago when I was living in my miracle studio apartment. This small feeling of despair began when I found roaches inside my coffee maker one morning last week before work. It was, indeed, a boo day. 

Living Away From Home On My Own

The Neighbor From Hell Begets the Year From Hell

A month or so went by and I hadn't heard much from Psycho 5F and I was starting to get settled into my new place and to get the hang of my new job. I was miserable at work, however. It was awful. I started getting ill all the time and was horribly depressed (sound familiar?) I was riddled with self-doubt, anxiety, and paranoia. It was bad, you guys. I would come home at night, play with my ferrets, watch TV, and sometimes boyfriend would come over but then I would go to bed and sleep forever. I would wake up with just enough time to get ready, make sure the ferrets were fed/watered, and get to work by the skin of my teeth. Every Day. My ferrets and Boyfriend were literally the only constant sources of joy and hope in my life. They were the reasons I kept trying. They were my reasons for getting out of bed in the morning and facing the day. But, I was still really stressed out and miserable most of the time. Something had to give.

I was living in my apartment for nearly two months and in that time, I had 4 unpleasant encounters with Psycho 5F. After the incident with the Super's wife, I didn't hear from 5F for a little while and thought she'd given up. Boy was I wrong.

May 2008:
Boyfriend and I were watching movies all night on my ancient tube TV with crappy speakers. I only say this because I want to make it perfectly clear that I did not own surround sound. Just a crappy old tube TV. I don't remember what we were watching, but by 3AM we were going to call it a night when a really foul smell we'd been noticing got much worse. We couldn't pinpoint the source, but we were certain that it was dead mouse smell. Paranoid that the mouse had died in my sofa, we carefully and as quietly as possible tried to cut open the lining on the bottom but didn't find anything. So, we decided to move the sofa out into the hallway to see if the smell got better. Yes, it was 3 in the morning, and it is difficult to quietly move a couch, but the only person in my building that had ever complained about me making noise was Psycho 5F, so I figured it would be alright since I hadn't heard from her in a while. Jess proven wrong yet again in 3...2...1...

As Boyfriend and I were jimmying the sofa out my door and into the hallway, I heard a door slam from somewhere in the building, followed by angry shuffling up the stairs. I look up just in time to see a pissed-off disheveled Psycho 5F sprinting up the stairs. She went on a tirade, screaming in the middle of the tile hallway-making far more noise than Boyfriend and I ever were. I apologized and explained the suspected dead mouse situation, but before I could even put the sofa down to try to reason with her, she went on and on about how noisy we were all the time and how we keep her awake every night and we are the worst neighbors ever. In my frustration and panic at being screamed at in the middle of the night, I started to lose my cool at her inability to be reasoned with, and got snarky. I told her to move into a nunnery if she wanted peace and quiet all the time. This kind of set her off even more. Psycho 5F started getting flustered and spouting out random shit that didn't make sense, and accusing me of things that could not have possibly been my fault, but then she hit my hot button. She insinuated that I was some spoiled little sorority girl brat living off of my parents' money. I all but threw the couch down (much to Boyfriend's dismay) and literally went toe-to-toe with this bitch and schooled her in some ass-chewing. I don't remember what I said to her but we screamed at each other in the hallway for a few minutes until she shuffled off in defeat of my superior wit and bitchiness. She did have to get the last word in, though. Her final "zinger" was, "This isn't Friends, you know!" I pshed her and I turned back to Boyfriend who had a look on his face that was a combination of disbelief, pride, and concern. I think that was his first glimpse of what a nasty bitch I was capable of being. But, life continued on.

Cut to 3 nights later:
Boyfriend came over again after we both got done with work and we watched O, Brother, Where Art Thou, an eventful movie, but not exactly Jurassic Park with surround sound, right? The next morning, I had to get up early to move my car for the street sweeper and what do I find on my door? A passive-aggressive note from guess who. All of the underlines and other punctuation are hers.


5/19/08
4 AM  (this is circled, mind  you)

Dear Neighbors,

Please keep the volume of your music down after midnight.  You woke me up again.  I have been trying to get back to sleep for two hours.  I realized there are "only two" of you and that's why I've had to listen to you moving in for the past six week or so, but there is only one of me to take care of everything I have to take care of so I really need my sleep!
When I moved in there was only one of me. Please try to be a bit more considerate.
Thank you, your downstairs neighbor.

This was what I was dealing with. I now understood that not only could this crazy not be reasoned with, she was completely unhinged. Never mind the fact that Boyfriend didn't live there, but I spent just as much time at his apartment as he did at mine, so I wasn't even home half the times this nutter was complaining about noise. I continued to attempt to be as quiet as possible and ignore her in the hopes that she would go away.

To make matters worse, two weeks later, I was fired from my job. Fired the day before my health benefits would have kicked in. Shady, no? So, in addition to desperately searching for work, dealing with the shitty Department of Labor, my unmedicated mental health issues, and constantly living in fear and guilt, I would get a nasty note on my door about once a week from the psycho bitch downstairs. Oh, and this was about that time when the country had plunged into that shitty recession we're still trying to recover from. Awesome.  What I needed most during this time was to be able to come home and feel safe. Psycho 5F made that very difficult to do. Her notes were getting more and more irrational to the point where I actually started to be concerned for my safety. I had no idea how unhinged she was, but I didn't want to find out. 

The final straw came for me late in the summer. I had to sell my car, and was able to find some temp office work a couple of times per week so I was barely eeking by. I had two ferrets at this point, and my oldest one, Gigit, was not doing well. The stress of everything and the heartache and fear for my dying baby made me snap. The final straw was an epic not from Psycho 5F blaming me for the fact that there were roaches in her apartment. Just a reminder: we lived in a 50+ year-old building in New York City. Roaches are kind of a thing here. She went on to all but accuse me of purposely placing my air-conditioner-unit above the window near where she eats her food and because of that, when she eats with her window open all the bugs come in and destroy her meals. (I so wish I was joking about this. I had this shit in writing, you guys.)  Clearly, I was out to get her with my loud TV and my air-conditioner. Because no one else in NYC has A/C units in their windows, or hardwood floors, or TVs.

Yup. No one like that round these parts. (Photo: Business Insider)

 But, I'd had enough. I was done with her. I threw a Hail Mary pass to end all the bullshit with Psycho 5F. I typed up a professionally worded letter complete with some legal jargon (to make it sound more intimidating) informing her that she was harassing me even though I have done nothing illegal or against any rules set forth my our landlord. Therefore I would be reporting to the police and filing harassment charges against her and move to file a restraining order on her were she to come in contact with me again. This was mostly a lie. I didn't want to waste a day of my life sitting at the local police precinct, nor did I want to go through all of the red tape to file a restraining order. But, amazingly, she didn't call my bluff. From that day forward I was rid of Psycho 5F. Sort of. She still did horribly passive-aggressive obnoxious things like complain about me to the Super and his wife, along with any other neighbor who would give her the time of day. Needless to say, I didn't have any friends in the building. She would also blast jazz music or Macy Gray as loud as her stereo could go at 7am. But, finally, she was the least of my stressors.  Sadly, my ferret, Gigit died not long after I realized that Psycho 5F was probably out of my hair for good. Gigit was old and very sick, but she died peacefully in my arms at home, wrapped in a blanket. She was my oldest ferret and such a lovely girl. I will forever miss her.

How could you not love such beautiful baby?

But, as all things, this too is now past. I still miss my furbabies every day, but I escaped that stupid apartment with the crazy neighbor, and Boyfriend and I moved in together. And that is whole other adventure altogether. Like, our couch, for instance...

To Be Continued...

Memory Lane Monday: My Shit-Hole Apartment (Part 7)

I'm very excited about this edition of Memory Lane Monday, mostly because I'm writing it from home and not my office where I work my "real job" thanks to Frankenstorm that is bearing down upon us. My office is closed today which means I got to sleep in this morning and I'm pretending I'm a real writer today. Working from home is a little tricky. I have my iPod plugged in to my head so that I can drown out the sound of Boyfriend's TV shows and the sounds of our crazy neighbor going berserk in the hallway because of the door to the roof that the wind keeps blowing opened and closed because it's not secure. Yes, that's right. A potentially very deadly mash-up of three severe weather events are bearing down upon us and the door to the roof does not stay shut. So, I better pump out this blog fast before water starts pouring on us. Speaking of shit storms and crazy neighbors, here is a riveting tale of the craziest neighbor ever:

Living Away From Home Year I've Lost Count

The Neighbor From Hell

(I Wish Zombies Ate Her, Then She'd Be Easier to Deal With)

So, I was finally all moved in to my miracle of a studio apartment in Astoria living by myself for the first time in my adult life. I had a great-paying job that I was struggling to enjoy and do well, but I was making enough money to pay my bills, plus buy some nice things, pay off my debt, and start a savings account. My plan was to stay at that restaurant for a year and build a nice little nest egg and then try and get either a serving job or a bar-tending job so I could continue to pursue auditions and acting jobs. They say that if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. Well I hope he had the best laugh ever because then at least someone enjoyed 2008.

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I was working as a hostess at a high-end restaurant in a swanky hotel in Midtown Manhattan. My boss was kind of a weird guy, but seemed ok. I got along well with the other hostesses and the bar manager just fine, but my direct supervisor was one of the biggest bitches I have ever had to work with in my life. Her name was Toby. She had some sort of power trip thing going on and was also one of those women that had some sort of complex with other women. She was pretty, but really short and seemed to hate anyone taller than her who was female, which included me. I think the fact that I was also blond and pretty gave her more fuel for her hate fire. She picked on ever little thing I did or didn't do. Nothing I did/wore/said was good enough for her. I didn't really care if she liked me or not, but it made work so much more pleasant when she wasn't up my ass about everything. On top of dealing with Toby, I had to spend all night on my feet on marble floors, dealing with rich snotty customers. Plus, no matter how early I got to my shift, the first 90+ minutes of every evening were filled with stress, chaos, and rushing around.  For a girl who was struggling with some self-esteem, anxiety, and depression, this work environment was not a healthy one.  So, needless to say all I wanted to do when I got home at night/early morning was relax. Well, the universe clearly had other plans.

Enter my downstairs neighbor, 5F or as I nicknamed her: "Psycho McCrazytown" (you'll understand why soon enough.) Our first meeting occurred on miracle day when Boyfriend and I were attempting to move all of my stuff into the apartment. Yes, it was very late at night/early morning when we finished and we were trying to be as quiet as possible, but we were making noise. I won't deny it. Moving is noisy business. As I was trying to quietly set down a chest of drawers when there was a pounding on my new apartment door. Assuming it was Boyfriend needing help, I answered. I was greeted by a disheveled angry face. She informed me that she lived downstairs and then yelled about all the noise and demanded I stop because I was keeping her awake. I apologized profusely for the noise and informed her that I was just moving in and that we were nearly done and then it would be quiet. This seemed to appease her enough to make her go away, and I did feel really bad for waking her up, but my sympathy does have a shelf-life.

Once Boyfriend and I finally got all of my stuff into the apartment and moved to one corner so that the super could still do some minor work before I could officially live there, we dropped off the moving truck and went to Boyfriend's apartment to sleep. I stayed with Boyfriend for almost a week until the Super called me to tell me I could move in (this is important.) Because I was working 40+ hours a week and was exhausted when I came home each night from work, it took at least a month to get my apartment entirely in order. But, in the first few days I was living there, I did buy some shelves for my bathroom to get organized. One fateful Friday at work, it looked like it was going to be a very late night which meant overtime pay, but also meant not getting home until around 2am. I made the not-so-wise decision to make myself a quad-shot cappuccino in the middle of the shift to plow though the rest of the night. This meant I was all kinds of jittery and hyped up even after I finally arrived home. 3am is not the best time to try to put together shelves for your bathroom. But I did anyway. I needed something to burn off the excessive energy I had. I tried to be quiet, but as I would soon learn, my definition of quiet is not the same as 5F's definition.

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My door bell rang violently at 3:30am.  Now, in NY doorbells are not the nice little "bing-bong" us suburban kids are used to.  No.  They are evil sounding noises that resemble psycho cries a la Xena Warrior Princess.   So, I was already on edge because of all the espresso AND now the doorbell had scared the ever-loving shit out of me.  I opened my door to my angry downstairs neighbor (I still to this day don't even know her name, she never offered it.)   She proceeded to go on a huge tirade about how noisy I was and how I have been keeping her awake for 2 weeks. (Remember that part about me living with boyfriend for almost a week? Yeah. I couldn't have been bothering her for 2 weeks because I hadn't actually been living there for that span of time. It was probably more like 2 days.)

 I apologized for making noise, but she cut me off. She started on a tangent about the plumbing and complaining about things that had nothing to do with anything.  I said I was sorry and that didn't know what she was hearing those other times because I wasn't here. She finally went away. I stopped my project, and eventually settle down enough to get some sleep.

Cut to: Eight (yes, 8) hours later.  Almost NOON on a Saturday.  I decided to tackle the shelves again.  I was making far less noise at this point, I had put a towel on the wood floor where I was working so as to deter any thumping or scraping for Psycho 5F downstairs.  Again, less than 5 minutes after I started, the scary angry doorbell screamed at me again. By the time I got over to the door, Psycho 5F was out in the hall complaining in a shrill voice to the superintendent's wife, who lived down the hall from me.  I dared to venture out in the hall to ask what's wrong and she went nuts again about the noise. This exchange took place:

Me: It's like 11am.  What do you want me to do?  I'm sorry I woke you up at 3, but that was 8 hours ago.  It's Saturday, I need to put together my furniture, I work all the time and don't have time to do it during the week.

Psycho 5F: (Quieter but still pissed) So, this is still "moving noise?"
 

Me: Yes
 

Psycho 5F: So this is not "recreational noise?"
 

Me: No.  I don't drop bowling balls from the ceiling for fun or anything. (I'm a smart ass, I know)
 

Psycho 5F: Well that's what it sounds like.  You know when I come home, I take off my shoes, I try to be respectful...(I stopped listening after this)
 

Me: (Looking down at my bare feet)  I'm not wearing shoes, I'm in bare feet. 

Just so she'd get the picture, I lifted up my foot and stuck it up in the air near her face so she could see.  She got even more pissy and I just closed the door to her huffing down the stairs screaming "I've never heard so much noise in this apartment before..!"

The best part about this neighbor of mine? She was not some cranky 80-year-old woman. She was maybe about 29.

I spoke to the Super's wife later that day to apologize for the intrusion and to explain my side of the story so I wouldn't get evicted.  The Super's wife informed me not to worry about it because 5F was apparently heavily medicated and imbalanced in some way and they mostly ignored her anyway.

Awesome.

Thus began a year-long power struggle with Pills McGee in 5F. She complained to the Super and his wife  about every little noise that came from my apartment, and then it got out of hand to the point where I suspected that she might actually climb the fire escape and attempt to stab me in my sleep. But the best Psycho 5F encounters and shit storms were yet to come.

To Be Continued...

Dear 5F please please get eaten by a zombie.

 

I did not make this awesome cross stitch. I found it here, but there is no source listed. If you know, please tell me so I can attribute it properly.

Memory Lane Monday: My Shit-hole Apartment (Part 6.5)

So, remember that time I mentioned that I escaped from New Jersey by the skin of my teeth? This is a quick story about that.

Living Away From Home Year 6-ish

Escape to New York

(Real Estate Brokers and Other Shady Dealings,
Or: Boyfriend the Hero)

There's an old adage here in New York that says "You're always looking for an apartment, a date, or a job." It's funny because it's true. Towards the end of my tenure in the New Jersey house, I got a job as a hostess at a really swanky fine dining restaurant in Midtown Manhattan. I was making more money there than I ever had in my life, with the potential to have health benefits for the first time, but between the pain-in-the-ass commute from Weehawken, paying twice as many state taxes, and Boyfriend living in Queens, I decided it was time to leave NJ.

I spent the first months of 2008 before my lease was up looking for a new apartment. I was looking in Queens where the prices were better, but also so I could be near Boyfriend. Every place I looked at was either too expensive, not at all what I wanted, or the broker I was dealing with was an idiot. With only a little over a month left before I needed to move, I started getting nervous and desperate. I decided to contact a new broker, and he showed me a couple of places that were waaaay out of my price range, but then he showed me an apartment that had been completely gutted.  At first I was about to scream, but he showed the intended floor plan and it looked great. It was a cozy 2 bedroom, railroad style with 2 entrances and was a block from the train, and one train stop away from Boyfriend. The owner/landlord was an active firefighter and part-time contractor. Other than the fact that it was under construction, I could see its potential and it was within my budget. Trying to sound casual, I asked the broker when they were planning on having it completed. He must have smelled my fear and desperation, a talent reserved for the slimiest of used-car salesmen, brokers, and lawyers (no offense to all of my lawyer friends/relatives.)  He dilly-dallied around an exact answer but asked when I needed to move. I told him I absolutely had to move in by the end of the month and without missing a beat, he guaranteed it would be done for my move-in date. Remember those red flags I was talking about last time? Clearly, I did not learn that lesson well enough, because this one was a doozy. But, it didn't stop me.

Source

I said that only if it was going to be done before my must-move date would I be interested. He, again gave me his word it was going to be done. So, I went back to his office to do a credit check and put down a deposit. My second red flag should have been the fact that they told me that my credit was fine. My credit score was not fine. It wasn't terrible at the time, but it wasn't "good" by any stretch of the imagination. I should have run away, run far away, and never looked back at this shady broker's office, but I did not. I put down my deposit for the apartment and paid the broker his "finder's fee" and skipped merrily home to continue packing, and to e-mail my buddy from college who had agreed to be my roommate.

Source

The first wrench in my plans came a week later when my college buddy said she had changed her mind and was moving in with her boyfriend instead. So, on top of working 40+ hours a week with a 3 hour round-trip commute everyday, I also had to find time at home to pack up all of my stuff, and find a new roommate. The universe was throwing red flags at me left and right, but I was too stubborn to see them.

Fast-forward to 3 days before I had to move out of the NJ house and into my new roommate-less apartment. I had enough money saved that I could float myself without a roommate for a couple of months. (I had rationalized it would be easier to find a roomie with the apartment finished anyway.) Boyfriend and I went to my new apartment to do a last-minute inspection and for me to sign the lease. I walked in and was less than impressed. The floors looked beautiful in the living room/kitchen, and the drywall was up and the wiring was finished, but there were no appliances, and the bathroom wasn't complete. Red flag. The first bedroom looked fine. Then we moved on to the "master" bedroom which was to be my bedroom. It looked great, except that the floor was slanted. Not just a little slanted.  We're talking fun-house slanted. If you put a pencil at one end of the room, it would roll smoothly all the way to the other end. SLANTED.

Boyfriend whispered to me, "I'm getting seasick. You can't live here."  

But I didn't want to believe it. I asked the landlord about the floor and his response was,
"Oh yeah, it's definitely not level."

After seeing the look of horror and disbelief on my face he continued, "Well, they said you needed it by the 30th so that didn't give me enough time to level the floor properly." 

RED. FLAG.



Oh yeah, I can totally make this work.
Source

Clearly the universe had grown tired of attempting to subtly tell me things and instead decided to beat me over the head with its message. Boyfriend and I booked it out of that apartment with me practically in tears. I couldn't live there. No one in their right mind would pay $1600 a month for that place! I had to move in 3 days. I couldn't extend my lease in NJ, there were already new people set to move in on the first of the month. How was I going to find a new place to live and finish packing everything in 3 days? Boyfriend took me to a diner across the street where I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed, and had panic attack before I could even attempt to eat lunch. After I spoke with the owner/landlord about getting my deposit back, we deduced that the broker had screwed both of us. The broker had told each of us a different story just to make the sale. I called the broker once I had calmed down and ripped him a new one. He had deliberately misled me into thinking that the apartment would be livable when I needed it. I felt really bad for the owner because he seemed like a decent guy, and he had worked overtime trying to get the apartment ready since he was under the impression that I "loved it and needed it done." But the reality was that I liked it just fine, and could see it's potential, but wasn't interested unless it was livable. The landlord was angry that he'd been swindled, but he was honorable and refunded my deposit immediately.

I spent the rest of that day trying to hunt down the broker to refund his share of my money, while trying not to completely lose my mind.  I hate moving. Hate. It. I've had anxiety attacks about moving months in advanced. Yes, that's right, I have preemptive anxiety attacks about packing things in boxes and moving them.  To say that it was a miracle that I was able to keep it together and function during these 3 days is the understatement of the god damned century. (Boyfriend disagrees with my definition of "keeping it together," he claims I was more like a zombie than anything else, but this is not about semantics.)

After lunch at the diner, I'm pretty sure I just blacked out inside a giant anxiety hole because I don't really remember those 3 days before moving out of NJ. But, while I was effectively losing my proverbial shit, Boyfriend sprung into super-awesome-boyfriend-action mode and conjured up a miracle. He somehow found a studio apartment for rent just down the street from his apartment. He set up a meeting with a new broker for me on the morning I was supposed to move out of Jersey. Miracle. Boyfriend stayed at my NJ house to finish packing my stuff and loading up my U-Haul truck, while I hauled ass over to Queens to look at the apartment and meet the broker.  She wasn't too pushy (for a broker) and actually seemed a little air-headed, but in typical broker fashion, she showed me 2 or 3 crappy apartments before she showed me the one we had asked to see. The more icky apartments I saw, the more stressed out and upset I became. When she finally opened the door to the studio that Boyfriend had originally asked about, I was so relieved, I almost cried. It was a huge studio (by NY standards) on the 6th floor of an older building.  It had an elevator, a trash chute, and a lovely view of the Manhattan skyline. It was close to the train which was both a blessing and a curse.  It was slightly out of my desired price range, but otherwise, it seemed perfect, and I wasn't about to be too picky. I texted pictures of it to Boyfriend to make sure that I wasn't just seeing it through desperation-tinted lenses.  He agreed with me that it looked great and we both breathed a huge sigh of relief. Boyfriend had worked a god damned miracle of miracles.

Super Awesome Boyfriend Action Hero.
*Now available with karate chop action!

I told the slightly-air-headed broker that I would put down the deposit right then and there. After a bunch of paperwork and phone calls at her office, I finally had the signed lease and key to my new apartment. I couldn't actually move in for a couple of days because they needed to do some minor electrical work and re-glaze the bathtub, but at the very least I was able to move all of my stuff into the apartment and just bunch it all up in the corner. Boyfriend not only helped me move all of my stuff to Queens from New Jersey (a delightful 6 hour process complete with getting lost in Northern New Jersey) but he also let me and my ferrets stay with him until I was able to move into my new place. He's a motherfucking hero. In hindsight, I probably should have just put all of my stuff into storage and moved in with Boyfriend and his roommates in the first place.  I would soon realize that my "perfect" apartment was a polished turd if I ever lived in one. But how was I to know what 2008 would bring?

(I'll give you a hint: It rhymes with "recession" and "psychotic neighbor.") 

 To Be Continued...