petty drama, highly localized
Dec. 3rd, 2005 12:23 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
verbminxOK, so I hate my neighbors.
In my four-unit building, we are #1, they are #2, #3 is unoccupied, and #4 is occupied by people who are really no trouble at all except for a minor parking thing.
I suppose, as neighbors go, the denizens of Unit2 could be worse. They are mostly average American young people, somewhat entitled and with a profusion of vehicles. They seem to like country music, hard rock radio, and alcohol. They are not usually truly excessively noisy (except that one episode when they were standing in the back courtyard conversing in their outside voices at 5AM; my bedroom window overlooks said courtyard).
However, there are two problems with them.
One is not really my business, and is kind of minor, but it's that they seem to have at least 4 people living there and someone is literally coming or going at any given time, day or night. Someone gets home at 3AM - we assume they're a bartender or something - and someone else leaves at 6AM. Throughout the day they come and go with absurd frequency, errands that rarely seem to last more than two or three hours. They always come through the courtyard door, so if I am asleep, their coming home usually wakes me up. Also, their incessant to-and-fro really upsets my dog during the day. I cannot claim it's their fault that she has a barking problem, but I can say that they are not really compatible neighbors for her. (The barking can't really be heard between units; we have good walls here, and have never had a complaint.)
A larger problem is this: they are terribly, painfully, ridiculously rude about the parking situation. Each unit in this four-unit building has two assigned spaces, one of which is in a garage and the other of which is in a small lot, numbered for the corresponding unit. We are requested not to park behind our gates, and if we have guests or more than two vehicles, those people are requested to park in the street: not in the driveway, or the spaces belonging to other units, or on the grass, or in front of the garage, etc. This comes on a rule sheet from the landlord when you move in. There really aren't many rules for the building.
GUESS WHO have flouted almost every single one of these rules?
They started parking in the third unit's empty spot, because they have like 4 vehicles for their single unit, as well as a few recognizable frequent guests who also pay zero attention to the parking rules. Sometimes Tom takes that spot too, mainly because I don't think that the Unit2ers should always have it when they are not in fact paying for it (since U3's garage connects to theirs, they are also storing their shit in it: out-of-season sports equipment, etc). So once in a while when he's going to be here all night, I have him park in that spot. I figure: it's open, it's no big deal if anyone parks there so long as nobody is in the unit. It doesn't belong to Units 1, 2, or 4, but any of us should feel free to use it until Unit3 is filled.
Now, insult to injury: THEY HAVE STARTED PARKING IN MY DESIGNATED, NUMBERED SPOT WHENEVER IT IS EMPTY. I am way past the polite-hate-mail stage and right into "I'm calling the landlord, and furthermore, if this happens again, I'm fucking HAVING THEM TOWED." (By the way, if there are no open spaces, it is very difficult to turn around once you are in the lot, particularly because the Unit4 kids park behind their back fence, which is their only annoying trait. They have some kickass tattoos in U4, too.) They know that Unit1 is not an empty unit. They're just entitled-acting, lazy, and disrespectful. They bring out the angry old man in me. That they would do this really, really pisses me off. I mean, there are 18-inch numbers indicating each unit at the open end of each space. There is no way that you could mistake it for an open lot, especially if you've lived there since like April. Which they have.
Anyway, just a few more months in this place. It's painfully overpriced anyway, though there is a good deal of space and most of the rooms are large (bathrooms and kitchen are very poky). And no, I wouldn't be a Parking Fascist if the Unit2ers didn't continue to cause serious inconvenience to we denizens of Unit1.
Oh, speaking of the dog... I remember some time ago I posted that I'd bathed her and was very upset at the length of her claws, which she's not so keen on letting anyone clip. She had one claw on a back leg that we have been clipping away at bit by bit, because we didn't want to get into the quick and because she could only endure brief grooming sessions.
What we have found that she prefers - which I don't like to allow - is to groom her nails herself, with her teeth. She's been worrying at that back claw for weeks, and I've clipped at it a little each week myself. Finally, tonight, she tore it off of herself! I don't know whether to be impressed or appalled. A little of both, I think.
I hope that we can now get back to a more regular regimen. One thing we found in trying to get rid of that long claw bit-by-bit was that although she fights tooth and nail when the restraint begins, her reaction to having her nails clipped is really different from her reaction to being brushed. When it's brushing time, she begins patiently and eventually becomes irritated. When it's nail-clippin' time, she begins seriously-bugged-out, but as she establishes that we aren't going to kill or hurt her, just clip her nails, and that the clipping doesn't hurt, she calms down enough that we can get a bit done.
In my four-unit building, we are #1, they are #2, #3 is unoccupied, and #4 is occupied by people who are really no trouble at all except for a minor parking thing.
I suppose, as neighbors go, the denizens of Unit2 could be worse. They are mostly average American young people, somewhat entitled and with a profusion of vehicles. They seem to like country music, hard rock radio, and alcohol. They are not usually truly excessively noisy (except that one episode when they were standing in the back courtyard conversing in their outside voices at 5AM; my bedroom window overlooks said courtyard).
However, there are two problems with them.
One is not really my business, and is kind of minor, but it's that they seem to have at least 4 people living there and someone is literally coming or going at any given time, day or night. Someone gets home at 3AM - we assume they're a bartender or something - and someone else leaves at 6AM. Throughout the day they come and go with absurd frequency, errands that rarely seem to last more than two or three hours. They always come through the courtyard door, so if I am asleep, their coming home usually wakes me up. Also, their incessant to-and-fro really upsets my dog during the day. I cannot claim it's their fault that she has a barking problem, but I can say that they are not really compatible neighbors for her. (The barking can't really be heard between units; we have good walls here, and have never had a complaint.)
A larger problem is this: they are terribly, painfully, ridiculously rude about the parking situation. Each unit in this four-unit building has two assigned spaces, one of which is in a garage and the other of which is in a small lot, numbered for the corresponding unit. We are requested not to park behind our gates, and if we have guests or more than two vehicles, those people are requested to park in the street: not in the driveway, or the spaces belonging to other units, or on the grass, or in front of the garage, etc. This comes on a rule sheet from the landlord when you move in. There really aren't many rules for the building.
GUESS WHO have flouted almost every single one of these rules?
They started parking in the third unit's empty spot, because they have like 4 vehicles for their single unit, as well as a few recognizable frequent guests who also pay zero attention to the parking rules. Sometimes Tom takes that spot too, mainly because I don't think that the Unit2ers should always have it when they are not in fact paying for it (since U3's garage connects to theirs, they are also storing their shit in it: out-of-season sports equipment, etc). So once in a while when he's going to be here all night, I have him park in that spot. I figure: it's open, it's no big deal if anyone parks there so long as nobody is in the unit. It doesn't belong to Units 1, 2, or 4, but any of us should feel free to use it until Unit3 is filled.
Now, insult to injury: THEY HAVE STARTED PARKING IN MY DESIGNATED, NUMBERED SPOT WHENEVER IT IS EMPTY. I am way past the polite-hate-mail stage and right into "I'm calling the landlord, and furthermore, if this happens again, I'm fucking HAVING THEM TOWED." (By the way, if there are no open spaces, it is very difficult to turn around once you are in the lot, particularly because the Unit4 kids park behind their back fence, which is their only annoying trait. They have some kickass tattoos in U4, too.) They know that Unit1 is not an empty unit. They're just entitled-acting, lazy, and disrespectful. They bring out the angry old man in me. That they would do this really, really pisses me off. I mean, there are 18-inch numbers indicating each unit at the open end of each space. There is no way that you could mistake it for an open lot, especially if you've lived there since like April. Which they have.
Anyway, just a few more months in this place. It's painfully overpriced anyway, though there is a good deal of space and most of the rooms are large (bathrooms and kitchen are very poky). And no, I wouldn't be a Parking Fascist if the Unit2ers didn't continue to cause serious inconvenience to we denizens of Unit1.
Oh, speaking of the dog... I remember some time ago I posted that I'd bathed her and was very upset at the length of her claws, which she's not so keen on letting anyone clip. She had one claw on a back leg that we have been clipping away at bit by bit, because we didn't want to get into the quick and because she could only endure brief grooming sessions.
What we have found that she prefers - which I don't like to allow - is to groom her nails herself, with her teeth. She's been worrying at that back claw for weeks, and I've clipped at it a little each week myself. Finally, tonight, she tore it off of herself! I don't know whether to be impressed or appalled. A little of both, I think.
I hope that we can now get back to a more regular regimen. One thing we found in trying to get rid of that long claw bit-by-bit was that although she fights tooth and nail when the restraint begins, her reaction to having her nails clipped is really different from her reaction to being brushed. When it's brushing time, she begins patiently and eventually becomes irritated. When it's nail-clippin' time, she begins seriously-bugged-out, but as she establishes that we aren't going to kill or hurt her, just clip her nails, and that the clipping doesn't hurt, she calms down enough that we can get a bit done.
