apartment characters

There are characters in every living situation, and apartment living provides the most eclectic grouping. For instance, we have the typical "weird cat lady" living right next door. Her eye twitches when she talks, she'll corner you by the mailboxes or in the laundry room to discuss common sense topics. She admits to not sleeping, and never leaving the apartment except to get groceries. This is true, since we see the daily Washington Posts sitting outside her door, piling up for days on end, and any time you walk down the hallway, her TV is on- 8pm, 12am, 5am, 3am... Her window (you can see from the outside) is covered in multiple stacks of trashy romance novels and science fiction thrillers.

Down the hall there is a young couple with a brand new bull dog puppy, named Bob, after Bob Marley. I run into the guy outside all the time, at all hours- and he's just content to stand there and smoke a blunt, and go back to bed. Very nice people, and Bob is so cute.

Our other next door neighbors- a quiet couple with a Great Dane- pretty much keep to themselves. Every time they take the dog out, they leave their apartment door cracked and I can see their bookshelf. It's spans almost the entire wall and is filled with what looks from a distance like artifacts and artwork and classic literature. Although, the guy definitely has a drinking problem. Sitting on my couch, I could hear this banging. I look through the peep-hole and see him standing in front of his apartment, leaning his head on the door. I open the door and ask if he needs to use a phone- since I've been locked out before, I know how bad it can be. He grabs my phone without even looking at my face, dials, yells, gives me back the phone. A moment later, my phone rang, and it was his girlfriend, asking who I was, etc. I informed her I was her neighbor and was just trying to help if he was locked out. She apologized for her boyfriend, and hung up. He continued to yell and bang on the door. By this point, I gathered that she was inside, refusing to let his drunk ass in. Then silence.... I look out the peep-hole again, and he's gone. Then all of the sudden, I see a flash of a screaming drunk neighbor run across the hall, arms flailing. To the left disappearing beyond the next wall..... wait for it.... and then back to the right. This has happened a few times now. Yet when I see him sober, he's so quiet, reserved, and will barely look up from the sidewalk.

The other week I came home from working at the bar to find 3 half naked men sleeping in the hallway at 4am Friday night... Apparently they pissed off the girls in the apartment next door, who were then refusing to let them back in.

Our upstairs neighbor has strange habits, and a very bad sex life. She vaccuums every Sunday night at 11pm, like clockwork, and occassionally must drop big furniture or run head-first into the wall, because a very loud BOOM occurs without rhyme or reason. And every now and then, (less often now) she has sex. About once every 2 weeks or so, the bed above our apartment squeaks in a depressing rhythmic pattern for a very short period.

Squeak......Squeak......Squeak......Squeak......Squeak......SqueakSqueakSqueakSqueakSqueak. Done. Footsteps to bathroom.

She must have had a fling though at some point over the winter, because the pattern sounded a lot better and lasted for much longer. She's back with the other guy now though. Poor girl.


A man, who reminds me of Jack Nicholson in 'As Good As It Gets," briskly walks the hallway at 7:30am. unaware of those around him, letting doors slam in your face. He has a military crew cut, and wears a pressed button-down plaid shirt every day. He always carries a large bag with him- a breifcase/backpack/laptop bag I assume... He never says a word, and seems like he has OCD tendencies...

Every afternoon when I arrive home from work, an old man, we'll call him Larry, sits on the wicker couch in the lobby, in front of the mailboxes, and watches everyone as they come home, or he'll sit on the bench just outside. He dresses in a suit, and wears a full brim hat, every day, to sit by the mailboxes and watch people come home.

The maintenance man will wave at me and ask how I'm doing, and how my dog is doing. He washes his bright blue sportscar every few days in our parking lot, and lives on the first floor, in one of the premium apartments with a patio and habachi grill. I should have made friends with him before I locked myself out by throwing my keys down the trash shoot on Thanksgiving, with a turkey in the oven... He points to my window on the second floor and tells me how my dog has been looking out the window for a while, waiting for me to come home. She perches herself on the A.C. unit and sticks her furry head out the blinds to watch all the comings and goings out the window. When you're in the parking lot and you look up, she almost looks like a stuffed animal.

Then when the power goes out, it's like summer camp. People grab lawn chairs and open all their apartment doors, and sit in the generator-lit hallway playing UNO and drinking beer. And that's how you make friends with your neighbors. The End.