Monty Dimond
By MONTY DIAMOND
Sharing a front door, car park, and hills hoist with complete strangers can be a tad testing at times. After residing in several flats, I have learnt the issues are often all the same.
Apartment blocks are full of grumpy, unfriendly beings furious they don’t have supreme control over their own wheelie bins. This frustration manifests itself in bizarre ways.
Late last Saturday night while I was catching some Z’s, I was woken by a lady in my apartment block playing her guitar and singing Christine Anu’s ‘My Island Home’. (She must have been mourning the premature departure of ‘Excess Baggage’ from our screens?)
Her crooning was painful, but she was giving it her all. I figured she had downed a few ciders, pulled out her axe, and decided to give it a red hot go like no one was listening. Only problem was everyone in my block had unwanted front row seats to her solo concert.
I lay in bed oddly enjoying her off key rendition of the 90’s hit when I heard a man yell out his window, “SHUT THAT UP! JUST SHUT THAT THING UP!” “That thing”, being a young woman liberating herself with a little Anu magic. The sudden silence that followed was deafening. Grumplestiltskin got his way and the drunken songbird promptly stopped her chirping.
Interaction can be rare in apartment blocks. My neighbours will happily hang their undie’s on the communal washing line for all to view, yet refuse to return a simple “hello” when passing in the corridor. It’s as if they are terrified that eye contact might lead to me knocking on their door for a cup of sugar and a tickle fight.
Rather than talk, the people I share my paper-thin walls with prefer to communicate via the ancient art of letter writing. Or more specifically, irate note scribing. In my block, an angry complaint note stuck on a car windscreen occurs more frequently than Seal’s inappropriate gyrating on ‘The Voice’. These notes are always anonymous and contain passive aggressive language, unnecessary capital letters and excessive amount of exclamation marks.
I have been fortunate enough to receive several abusive anonymous notes throughout my apartment living career. My favourite being from a neighbour who felt compelled to complain about my culinary efforts. Apparently the aroma of an over charcoaled chook is not everyone’s cup of tea. This resulted in a friendly note slipped under my door suggesting I “invest in cooking lessons, or learn to use a BLOODY FAN before everyone DIES from the STENCH!!!!!”
Even though my fellow flat dwellers get a little heavy handed with the old pen and paper, there are parts I do love about living in an apartment block. I get to live with a gay couple, a cat lady, a pizza addict, some Uni kids and a man who sweeps our communal driveway with a stick. It’s like a minestrone soup of society.
There is rarely a dull moment, just like a real life Melrose Place sans the non-stop sex. (Bummer). The fact that someone also comes and vacuums the common areas and puts the bins out once a week kind of makes me feel like I’ve got hired help. So it’s not all that bad. Until I can afford my white picket fence, 2.4 kids and a Dulux Paint dog, apartment living it is.
Katie “Monty” Dimond is a broadcaster and media personality. She has appeared on Channel Ten, Channel Nine, and Nova FM. She is currently busy being a full time Mum and loving it!
Apartment living. Thoughts?
Comments
89 Comments so far
I envy the fact that someone comes and takes out the bins. At our place, only 2 units (put of 6) regularly put theirs out so when the others, who lack the time management to do such a thing, then need a place to put their rubbish, it’s in the bins of those who are perpetually emptied. Only issue I have with that is that I have to ‘store’ my rubbish or transport my rubbish to work to place in the large bin. Rant over!
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I’ve lived in all of these places you all mention…the note leaving old lady; the noisy sex in the bedroom above ours; the crazy screaming fighters; the bin issues; plus one guy spray painted his garden furniture and accidently got most of my white car with green paint; the random blood curdling Sunday afternoon screamer; the balcony hoser that drenches the stuff on our balcony below; the Christmas tree thief; dog poo leavers; dickhead who parks behind my car parking me in for 15 minutes; the post nightclub closing French guy who brings the whole club home at 3am and partays till sunrise so loud it wakes us up and we’re two floors down; the doof doof music in the car coming home at 2am that sounds like a helicopter landing in the carport, then starts up in their flat; the sound of someone’s lungs and their contents being coughed up while I try to eat my breakfast.
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Hmmmm apartment living….. I love it but it does have its ups and down. Like love the hired help putting the garbage out, gardening etc. Takes approx 10 minutes to vacuum the entire place. Its cosy and right in the centre of town, across the road from the beach/skatepark woollies! But yes 1 toilet is scary sometimes! Neighbours partying till 6am annoying but they’ve been vacated. Very funny apology from them but they couldn’t keep their promise. Environmentally my footprint is quite insequential perhaps/maybe?
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I love apartment living – have always lived in apartments, even growing up, but yes, you do meet all sorts. The next door neighbor who owned a brand new mini and refused to park in his space as it was “too close to the wall”. This then left not enough room for the other two cars to fit. When we asked him to park his car in his designated spot rather than take over two spots, he refused. Lovely! We were not sorry to see him go.
Then there was the couple next door who had the most vicious screaming matches with each other until all hours of the morning. One night, the girlfriend came home at 3am and didn’t have her keys so rang the security door buzzer to be let in. This was not long before they moved out and their relationship was pretty much over. The boyfriend wouldn’t let her in, so she proceeded to ring all of our doorbells to let her in. Note that the doorbell for the security door is a high pitch shrill that can be heard in any apartment and she wasn’t just lightly ringing it – she had her finger pressed hard.
Fun times.
But having said that, one of my neighbors is very proactive about having drinks every once in awhile to keep things friendly and I have managed to become friends with a few of the neighbors.
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Bahahaha! We lived in an apartment for the first 18 months after we were married – the apartments were four to a floor and mirror-imaged so that our bedroom backed onto the bedroom of our next door neighbours, who were a couple… with three members…. lol OMG! Too Much!
We’re looking at moving back into an apartment and I had totally forgotten a whole bunch of this stuff, especially the passive aggressive note writing and the the mail from the fifteen previous tenants! On that, we’ve been in our current place for four years and we’re STILL getting mail for previous tenants.
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I once had a note under my door asking me not to flush my toilet after 12 unless it was an emergency! True story.
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Apparently it’s actually illegal in some parts of Europe (Switzerland?) to flush your toilet after 9 or 10pm. Just imagine!
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Yep that’s almost true. It’s not illegal but it’s a rule in every apartement block to avoid flushing and showering after that time! Grew up there…
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The first time my next-door neighbor had a vomitting bug I honestly thought there were two grizzly bears fighting outside my front door. I nearly called the ambulance because he was so violently ill. It’s happened three times since… Last night he kept our whole townhouse complex awake past 2am.
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Years ago, in my only time living in a block of flats, we had a party.
When I say a ‘party’, I mean 3 drunk friends and a cheap karaoke DVD.
The party went well into the night until everyone passed out.
The next morning I found a slip of paper under my door. It simply said “Shut up!”.
I don’t know at what time the note was delivered but I took action as soon as I saw it. There was no more karaoke from that point on.
I thought it was a very effective form of communication.
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wow sounds awful! my one and only experience in an inner city apartment block in Sydney was great. Single professionals and a couple of families, always smiley and respectful with a friendly word or two in the lift or lobby. I get loads more trouble and noise from the self-important buffoons and their squawking offspring on my current suburban street of hideous cement-rendered palaces.
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Has anyone experienced the weirdness that is the marble? falling on the floor then rolling across it which usually emanates from the apartment above yours? It seems to be a phenomenon of apartment living that many people experience but cannot explain.
My favourite experiences of being a tenant in a block of flats have been:
Finding a half eaten meat pie slung on my front doorstep, there it was all cold & congealed sitting there on the internal carpeted hallway. Noice.
Constantly writing ‘return to sender’ and all the bloody mail you get from previous tenants that can’t update their address, they always seem to have 50 different credit card bills & are being chased by sheriffs.
The short term rentals i.e. partying backpackers who think nothing of partying in the communal pool at 3am on a Monday night, yelling & carrying on whilst taking flash photography of their antics.
Broken lifts whilst you are trying to move out or in, trapping my gear for several hours.
Other tenants that can’t put their garbage down the bin schute and leave it sitting in the bin room.
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What is that marble sound???
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Yes! What IS that??!!!
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OMG! The marble thing drives me nuts! What is it?
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Phew, it isn’t just me that gets this!
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Apparently it’s air locks moving around in the plumbing between the levels of the building. I googled it once cos I was curious too. One place I rented in Port Douglas was so bad it sounded like a bunch of empty beer bottles tumbling over onto the tiles.
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This post made me laugh! Husband and I are currently living in an apartment complex and a lot of the things written in this article has resonated with me.
The passing by in the corridor or travelling in the lift together (awkward! especially when you smile and say hello and they mumble something back).
Have also had notes left on our door – funniest was when my husband had the music on for 5 minutes and found a note on the door saying “Turn your music down this isn’t the fucking ghetto.”
And the noise! I have no idea who lives in the apartment above us but the noises they make drive me crazy! Coughing at all hours of the night, flushing toilets, and when they walk it sounds like they’re stomping or all wearing high heels! The walls are like paper thin.
But of course there is the upside of things like having a trash disposal room (just dump your rubbish in a chute and any recyclables stay in the room to be picked up), not having to shovel snow in the winter and undercover parking!
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I live in an apartment complex and we never hear the other neighbours. We’ve had dinner out with some of our other neighbours who are lovely and we have a most excellent groundskeeper/maintenance guy. My housemate and I love it. The only noise we really hear are the trams but that’s the payoff of being really close to the city and public transport.
The only bad story I can recall off the top of my head is our next door neighbour is a SUPER fat heavy heavy smoker and had (no exaggeration) about 100 empty cigarette packets and overflowing ashtrays on his balcony that is right next to ours. I made a complaint to body corporate and obviously it got to him as it was all cleaned up less than a week later. Gotta love a speedy response.
There are some pretty funny horror stories though. Come to think of it… we have regular dinners and parties with mates so it’s probably our neighbours that hate us, oh well!!
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I live across the road from an apartment block. Recently, the irate note-writer from that block spread their temperamental note to all the surrounding neighbours. Apparently, one of the other neighbours on our street took the apartment block’s green bin and was adding their lawn clippings before it was put out. This was definitely NOT ALLOWED, and we all heard about it! Now I understand that the note writer’s passive aggressive language was because they were the anonymous note writer, not because he/she hates us all! Haven’t heard from them since….
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I once lived in a block of flats with a couple upstairs who very much kept to themselves. We shared a hills hoist, and one day when I brought in my washing, I was missing a pair of black undies. I didn’t think much of it, but when I put another load out the next day, there was a pair of black undies on the line. Not mine. I hung my washing on the other side of the hills hoist and ignored them. And they then hung their washing out, and ignored the undies. And so it went on, for three weeks, until I caved and threw them in the bin.
I still think of that couple as “the girls who stole my undies”…
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I HATED apartment living…living so close to people you could hear their bodily functions was certainly not my idea of blissful living, but sadly it’s all part of growing up and being out on your own.
At least it provides for some fun times & crazy memories…my boyfriend (now husband) and I lived next to a guy who taught salsa dancing lessons. His name was Andre’ and every afternoon he’d have a different ‘lday’ over for lessons. We could see them dancing in the lounge room with their loud music on for about an hour. Then the music would get replaced with about an hour of grunting and”Oh Yes yes YESSSSS!” then she would leave, and another would arrive!
Oh, and then there was the flatmate who used to steal my bra’s, and the one that used to eat my food…the list goes on
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Been living in my current apartment for nearly two years now and I honestly don’t have too much to complain about in terms of noise, despite living in an inner city area. I’ve only ever had to make one official noise complaint when the guys downstairs came home at 1am and proceeded to blast their music so loud my floor was almost shaking. And when I politely called over the balcony to ask if they could please turn it down a bit, they turned it up louder and started singing as loud as they could. Honestly, the white noise app on my phone is a lifesaver!
The main issue with where I live is that there are a bunch of apartment blocks all reasonably close together, so the sound bounces around very easily. Thus I can hear the couple downstairs going at it whenever they leave their window open. And I can tell you, she’s having a fantastic time! It doesn’t annoy me particularly, it mostly just makes me jealous – he clearly knows how to keep his woman happy.
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I lived in an old style complex with a communal landry. It was hideous. There was space for each unit to have their own washing machine but some tenants didnt have one so would just use someone elses. A few times I would go down to do my washing and find my machine mid cycle with someone elses clothes inside. Polite notes requesting them not to use my machine were ignored so I one time when I had the day planned to do washing (I worked shift work and wore uniforms so had to wash on my day off) I had enough and stopped the machine mid cycle and dumped their wet soapy clothes back into their basket. I bought a chain and padlock for the power cord on my washing machine to prevent them from using it again. But I moved out soon after that because I felt like I was living in a prison.
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I practically grew up in apartment blocks. There were good things but many bad ones too. We were 4 kids and our parents tried constantly to keep us as quiet as possible, we still received complaints to be even quieter. On the weekend when we would have visitors, there would always come this single lady from downstairs and just after 10pm she would ring the door bell and ask us to be quiet(it was very strict in the country I grew up-after 8pm it has to be reasonably quiet, after 10pm no noises what so ever). Also we were limited to 2 times a week to use the washing machine, can you imagine with a family of 6. The good thing tough was, when we were playing outside, there were always other kids to play with, particularly in summer. Everybody was out from morning till it got dark, and we were able to play awesome games.
When I was 18 my parents could afford to buy a house.
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Oh but the time when I moved out from home and lived in an apartment, that’s when I realised how hard it is, even though I was single.
The notes(for not having cleaned the washing machine after use-I simply forgot and it wasn’t like it was filthy), the high heels in the hall way, and actually all the steps, as I was on ground floor. The old lady whose window was next to my balcony, and every time I was sitting on my balcony, she would pop her head out the window and complain about other people or bombard me with questions about my life. And of course when I had visitors in the evenings, she would bang on the wall! I know she was just lonely, but that’s not my problem!
The thing that got me almost moving out from there was, I decorated my little balcony with plants and those bamboo screens, to make it look nicer and also not having to see this nana on the left side. I got a letter from the owner to take this “ugly screens” down, as this is not aloud in this apartment block, if I wouldn’t take it down, my contract will be cancelled. I am still raging about this, grrrr.
Now I just feel lucky to be able to afford a house and be able to do what I want(well almost, of course there is the husband now…).
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I’m curious, in which country?
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Switzerland
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Living next to old people was great. Always felt safe as I knew they never left the house. One would always bring my bin in and my newspaper and I enjoyed sharing my cooking with the other two.
I don’t miss it though. The car noises drove me crazy but that’s about as bad as it gets.
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I love living in apartments, although we’ve usually been on the top floor so haven’t had to deal with upstairs noise. The best thing about apartments (especially higher floor ones) is that if you go on holiday, you just lock your front door and off you go. No worrying about deadlocks and window screens and setting lights on timers to make it look like you’re home. The other thing is that you dont get anyone at your door wanting to talk about Jesus or how to get a better deal on your electricity bill.
There’s a harmless crazy guy in the apartment downstairs from us and I love it because he compliments me every time I see him – even at the supermarket ! “oh hello! You look lovely today! I like yellow! Bye!”. We also have a nice old lady who cleans the stairwell and takes the bins out. She’s appointed herself as my second mother and always tells me to take an umbrella or put a jumper on or take my thongs off (seriously she wont let me walk up or down the stairs with thongs on because she’s convinced I’ll slip on the tiles).
The walls are paper thin but everyone lives pretty quietly and no one steals each others washing or anything like that. It’s pretty great!
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Oh I still get people trying to sell electricity and religion to me. I live in a secured building but people often leave the front door wedged open and this allows the salespeople in. Or in other cases all it takes is for one person to buzz them in and they set on each apartment like vermin!
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I was baffled when two Jehovah’s Witnesses rocked up to my apartment at 10AM Saturday morning…. (Pre-noon is generally not a good time to be selling religion to a hung over 20something)
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I think you are really onto something here. The recycle bins used to drive me nuts. Most people couldn’t tell the difference between them and the garbage ones. For the first year I tried to remove all of the plastic bags etc and then I gave up in despair. The banging of the front doors drove me crazy. The high heels, the screeching of furniture on the wooden floorboards, the crazy penthouse owners who used to fight with each other and literally looked down on us, the all night parties from the hospitality owner who had a passion for Neil Diamond and Turkish music at 4am all sent me spare. The final straw was the owner who never paid their fees and we had to pay the legal costs to sue them to recover them. The fees were just as much as they owed! We had some good times too but the bad things really took their toll – thank god we moved on!
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Ummm, it was just last week my apartment building manager stopped me from carefully separating my recycles and rubbish to tell me not to waste my time as our bin company collects it all in the same truck. WTF?
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It is so true you cherish the privacy and quiet of something else, but for all the annoying things you can choose to be accepting, tolerant and friendly, and end up with a whole bunch of friends for life!
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OMG I could write a book about this subject!
My hubby and I lived in the most insane apartment block for 6 years. There were the typical old ladies who were on the board and would complain about everything, there were the old gay alcoholics who would wander outside without clothes and literally both drank themselves to death in their apartment. There were the young gay couple who had the most amazing back garden complete with a water fountain but were so anal that they would complain about everyone and everything, notes and all! There were the pot smoking french guys who would have loud parties and the retired artist who loved to paint nudes and leave his blinds open so we could see the finished product on our way back from the laundry! But nothing, absolutely nothing tops off the schizophrenic lady above us who would shout out at all hours of the day and night. Sad really. But we couldn’t believe one building could have so many ‘characters’. Never again will we go back to apartment living!
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AH Monty, I loved this. I have lived in apartments for years. My husband and I just bought a house and I can’t wait to move. Very very over hearing my neighbours all the time… Some jewels from the past.. one apartment I lived in, a neighbour kept setting off her smoke alarm almost every day and one day another neighbour yelled out to her “learn to f*#ing cook!” very funny. I also lived in another block where my downstairs neighbour was a drag queen who had frequent all night parties blasting nothing but Kylie, next door was a woman who liked LOUD sex at 3am, our bedroom walls were next to each other fun! Very very glad to move to a house
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I love living in my apartment. I never hear my neighbours as we have thick walls, occasionally they will have a party and we don’t hear a thing. It’s great.
Most people in our building are very friendly. People will always stop to have a quick chat, or they’ll help you bring up the groceries from your car, invite you in for a cup of tea or even over for dinner.
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We have elephants above us. Elephants that ride skateboards and bounce basketballs down the hallway, start playing Dance Nation at 10.30pm every night, watch TV on maximum volume so that I can hear it clearer than the laptop a metre from my face and blast Justin Bieber until 5am on Sunday morning. For a 40th birthday party. But it’s okay, they popped a note through a door to say “We are having a party tomorrow night and there WILL be loud music”. Presumably so that we wouldn’t ask them to turn the music down at 3am again. What party-poopers we are!
We are a flat of four 20-somethings. They are a family with seemingly 302 kids from ranging from age 1.5-ish through 14-ish.
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LOL Elephants! I know how you feel!
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Terraced house I lived in in England was great – couldn’t hear the neighbours, except that you could hear their light switches click on and off.
Apartment I lived in in Perth eons ago was wonderful. Was friends with the neighbours and hung out with them a lot. It was fun. The guy and I got to be *very* close, if you know what I mean.
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Thanks for reminding me why we mortgaged ourselves to the hilt for the next 30 years to buy our house.
After 10 years of living in a unit with 2 kids I love having my own bin, clothesline, driveway, parking space and sanity.
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It says your a full time mum?
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what, you can’t have kids and live in an apartment?
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ahh I just reread this and realised i made a mistake. I’d assumed that she was sharing an apartment with the people she mentioned but know im thinking she has her own apartment?
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I’m lucky, I live in a set of 7 units and we hardly hear anything. We share a clothesline, only with 1 other person.
The only noise we do hear is if we go to bed, the neighbour in his kitchen doing the dishes making clinking noises.
The neighbours are all friendly. I love it!
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Our ex upstairs neighbour decided he wanted to get into a fight with me when I was 8 months pregnant because I parked in the visitor parking – I was only going to park in the for 5 mins as I was running upstairs & going straight back out – he proceeded to call me a “pregnant moron” (nice one huh – with his girlfriend looking on!) because he couldn’t park his second car in this second visitors park after he parked his boat in his garage & his car in the first visitors carpark! Needless to say we moved – in our new place our neighbors complained about our daughter (8 months & teething – 6 teeth at the same time!) “Um your baby was crying again last night” “yep I know I was there thanks – if u were getting 6 teeth & had a temp I think you would b crying too!” & they did this in several occasions! After my hubbie had a “friendly” word they finally stopped commenting!
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The house with the white picket fence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, as we’re discovering. 18 yo and her 13yo boyfriend on one side – both hard core chromers and subsidised by parents, police woman and house mate on other side – house mate STARTS playing loud music at 2am on a Monday morning, right outside my kids’ bedrooms. This is all happening in an “above average” suburb. So over it we’re considering moving back to apartment living. At least there is an on site manager and body corporate to enforce the rules that used to just be common courtesy.
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Love it
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A nice story to add to the tales of horror;
My elderly aunty fell down and cracked her head on a window, blood everywhere! Her new neighbours picked her up, took her to their apartment, cleaned her up (one was a nurse), took her to the doctor, waited with her and brought her home, made her dinner and refused to let her leave until they knew she was fine. All without making a fuss or making her feel unwanted. They have since started bringing in her newspaper and checking on her to make sure she’s doing OK.
So to this couple who have so kindly taken on taking care of my beloved aunty, thank you from the bottom of my heart, I wish I lived closer to her so it could be me!
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This happened at a friend’s apartment…
I was waiting for this friend just outside the block of flats. I was staring into space when I heard a women in one of the apartments scream.
I jumped. What the hell?
And she kept screaming. I was about to call the police when the screams changed pitch and alternated with grunts and repetition of the word “yes.”
I wasn’t listening to a murder, I was listening to bloody noisy sex – that was audible from the street!
My friend was unsurprised. Apparently that was something you had to get used to if you wanted to live in that block.
Ipomen Scarlet
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Nice work
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Haha where was this? If it was Elwood, Victoria I think I live in the same block!!
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Heh!
Well that makes at least 2 apartment blocks where screamy-sex takes place in Melbourne.
My friend’s place was in Fairfield.
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Haha maybe the girlfriend lives in Elwood and the boyfriend in Fairfield, and they just rotate apartments!
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We used to have a neighbour who was on the body corporate and thought they owned the place.
They would always park their second car in visitor parking, even though it was expressly banned, then complained when I parked my car in the other spot!
If you left your bin on the street for more than 24 hours post bin day, they would bring in your bin and put it in front of your garage, so you couldn’t drive into your garage without stopping and getting out and moving the bin. It was ridiculous and usually for us, not bought in because we were staying at boyfriends houses or something and actually not home. No, they did not do it to be helpful, because if they did, they would have put the bin somewhere so that you could still drive into your garage without having to stop to put a bin away.
I was a uni student, so home all day. To get them back, one day, as soon as the bin collectors had come, I went and got their bin, and put in front of their garage to see how they liked it. Immature, yes. Hilarious, YES.
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Spanking competitions. Yep, completely whacked out crazy but true. One night eating on our terrace, heard a bunch of slapping, girls giggling and comments like “look how red that ones going” and “nah mate, that’s cos you’re totes hitting harder than me”. And it’s happened more than once!!
On a nicer note, when I was taken to hospital in an ambulance, our upstairs neighbour showed them to our place, came in and helped them carry me down the stairs (they had to use a sheet instead of a stretcher because of stairs and angle of staircase) and got spare keys off my husband so he could feed our pets.
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I lived in this brilliant apartment block with my eldest girl for 4 years. So amusing. Had a party for my birthday, invited the neighbours and one couple dropped in with a bottle of wine, said they couldn’t make it but to have fun. Funniest thing there was I could hear the fellow in the flat above me fart in the bath!
Which also made me realise he could probably hear the ‘gorgeous but dumb as a box of rocks’ bouncer I was dating who would ‘yahoo’ at the point of orgasm….hmmm
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I wish we were friends… I reckon you and I could put away a good few wines and share some hilarious tales…..
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Vegas – hey I like new friends!
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I’m not such a fan of apartment living!
The people above us are quite gangsta and must work in hospitality or something because they think work nights are appropriate for loud gatherings on their balcony. So we’ve been woken up around midnight a few times by loud talking and once, beat-boxing and rapping. Yay.
I do love passive-aggressive notes. Partly I think because I know I’d be partial to writing them if I let myself (I live with my boyfriend and his friends, so should probably keep things friendly!). So when I’m irritated by something (like hair left in the shower drain, bad stacking of dishes so my plates fall and are broken, people not replacing toilet roll, etc..) I just compose a passive aggressive note in my head, have a chuckle and a deep breath and get over it!
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DON’T FILL ALL OF THE WHEELIE BINS IN FUTURE!!
- was the note I found scrawled on the cardboard lid of a beer carton and shoved under the doormat…
Strange thing was, I was back to do one last clean – we’d had a moving truck in the driveway all weekend and the curtains all wide open on the ground floor unit clearly displayed that everything was gone…
I figured they were scared we might continue to use their bins, despite having moved to another suburb!
Hahaha
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The best note I ever got was:
Please don’t park in this spot. Otherwise I will call the Police.
Okay. Call the police. I’m sure they haven’t got anything better to do with their time. The thing is…it is MY parking spot which had my unit number painted on it…and it has NOTHING to do with the Police.
Or another crackpot neighbour accused another neighbour that she could hear him having nookie. Now this crackpot lives diagonally across from him…not underneath him…so how the hell she could hear what he was doing I have no idea.
Ahhhhhhh bliss.
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ooh one of my favorite subjects!
so a few years ago I had a party and everyone dutifully left before midngiht.I know this becasue I remember being surprised that someone knew when the last train was leaving to go to Central.
the next day I discovered a note written in BLOCK capitals with lots of exclamation marks!!! complaining about hte allnight party and the LOUD !!!music ( um my stereo was broken at the time, there was no music).
I never found out who wrote the note or whose ( much better sounding) party they had confused mine with.
some new neighbours had a party a while ago when they first moved in. I went up and knocked on the door and invited myself in for a drink( i took my own full wine glass – they were lovely, still are!
the old bat downstairs spent the entire evening banging on the ceiling trying to get them to turn their music down. guess who had a better night?
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Overall I find apartment living not so bad our neighbours in our block are all very friendly, it’s more our neighbours on either side that are the problem.
Our balcony unfortunately overlooks the driveway of the house next door, however is covered by 3 pine trees, which we’ve noticed have been mysteriously dying and being pruned excessively.. The elderly man there loves to come for walks to put things in his otto bin and to get in and out of the car, however this can happen 10 times in an hour, no matter the time of day. I’ve been out teher at 6am on a weekend and he came bustling out, it’s very odd.
His son also has very loud screaming matches with his wife who lives overseas over the phone in their native language, either very early in the morning, or very late at night.
Unfortunately our apartment is perfect apart from those neighbours, so moving isn’t really an option.. I guess you can’t have it all.
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i never hear my neighbours – but my god if anyone parks on the communal grass or in the visitors parking when they are permanent residents the letters come flooding..
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I loved the communal washing line at my old block because I was the only person who ever bothered to use it!
My current block is OK although there are a few seriously heavy smokers who you can smell when they’re out having a fag and often hear hacking their guts up – gross.
Our upstairs neighbours obviously just upgraded their surround sound system as we’ve heard a few loud movies recently although they don’t go too late.
Ah and yes, hearing the ppl upstairs having their pee before they go to bed – don’t think I have lived in any block without hearing that!
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I live in a block of units, which for the most part are pretty good. However, the unit block next door has one apartment that overlooks my deck. It is home to about 8 Indian taxi drivers (no, I am not stereotyping – they actually ARE taxi drivers, there are often 5 or 6 taxis parked out the front).
In 6 months living there I have worked out that they must tag team for beds as it is a 2 bedroom unit. They are crazy noisy in half hour blocks every 8 or 9 hours (5.30am, 2.30pm and 9pm) at shift changeover. They talk sooo loud, their voices carry for ages, and I am so over the Bollywood music.
My first night living there they had a massive all nighter party, with various surrounding neighbours yelling out to them to shut up. It went to 4am then started again at 5.30am with one of them yelling on the phone to India, at which point I went crazy at them. I was in tears that I had bought the unit, and crazy tired. I must have slept at some point though because I clearly remember dreaming that I had them deported for being noisy! (over-reaction much?)
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I have the same thing – there are 6 Indian guys living in a 2 bedroom apartment. Half are cab drivers and the other half work at the local Thai restaurant (??). For the most part I don’t really notice them, but on Monday and Tuesday nights they have little “parties” in the bedroom that shares a wall with my bedroom. They speak very loudly and animatedly (but I have no idea what they’re saying to even enjoy eavesdropping! ha). I figure it’s because they want to keep the noise away from whoever sleeps in the living room – but it’s not fun for me.
Especially with my body clock after weekends always programmed to stay up all night and so struggling with insomnia already…
Still – it could be worse!
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I’ve had the same thing. Taxi tag team with a family of about 15 sharing a TINY three bedroom apartment underneath mine. The layout of the complex also meant that the tunes and loud talking/beeping/yelling at all hours of the day and night would reverberate up and straight into our windows.
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Dont get me started on this topic! I’m currently living in Canada and in my previous apartment building was a crazy lady at the gym who would blast the TV and glare at anyone who spoke a word in the gym. She was so messed up she went so far as to shove my trainer and then lie to the concierge! Now we are living in a building full of retirees- brilliant except some often forget to put on clothes when answering the door! Oh and I think the guy across the hall has some sort of drug lab going on with all gurgling noises that come from his door. The walls are so thin, I hear my upstairs neighbors mobile phone vibrate!
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Oh I don’t miss any of this, especially my bra’s and knickers being taken from the clothes line, numerous times. I also don’t miss the slamming of people’s front door’s, those things got me out in the end, I will never go back, love my house and neighbours that live over the back fence.
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I used to get underwear taken from the clothesline when I lived in an apartment in Perth. Aparently it’s called snowdropping.
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My sister used to live in a apartment next to a guy who would always moan. He was old so he could have been in pain but it sounded more like a pleasure moan. He would also hang dirty wet socks on the balcony hand rails.
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I LOVE my apartment block. My housemate and I have an animal that lives in the tree out the front of our place that we’ve affectionately named cat/dog/possum, because it makes the strangest noise we’re not exactly sure what it is…. There’s also a tiny yapping dog that gets put out for a wee every night just after The Block and whines for about 10 minutes before they let him back in. But our neighbours seem friendly enough. They tolerate my terrible parking which means they can’t fit in their space (no angry notes yet!) and once when I got locked out they buzzed me in so I could try and break into a back window.
Our neighbours ACROSS the street however… well that’s a story for another day.
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Great comment
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