Gross

I would SO love to live in a place that had nicely painted walls (white, no holes, no stains, no cracks) and a kitchen light that worked and a toilet that didn't run constantly and a working smoke alarm and a peep hole that wasn't painted over and a maintenance person who GAVE NOTICE before they entered my apartment and used their OWN rags/towels/nice washcloths to clean up their messes.

I came home the other night, was on the phone, put away some clothes and eventually went into the bathroom to brush my teeth before bed. There was lint and crap EVERYWHERE. Somebody had come to clean my bathroom fan (without calling or leaving notice or letting me know) and had basically knocked everything loose onto my floor and counter and into my glass and all over my clean towels. But they failed to notice that the toilet was running the entire time they were there and didn't fix that very obvious problem. They ruined one of my washcloths (and just left it in the sink) which is the second time that's happened. So I checked my kitchen light, my smoke alarm... nope, they only cleaned the fan.

I left a not-so-nice message for the manager/owner and was able to talk to her the next morning. She was actually very, very nice. She had no idea the maintenance people had been here (doesn't that sort of count as breaking and entering?) and was appalled that they left such a mess and used MY belongings to do the job. She said to buy a new washcloth and turn in the receipt and they would reimburse me. She also told me that she would personally take care of the issues at hand and that she would make a note in my file that I don't ever want maintenance done unless I'm home. (Obviously that doesn't include emergency situations.) She was also very interested to know that the cops were at my neighbor's apartment last Friday.

Because I called them.

I was laying in bed reading, hoping the loud music next door would stop fairly soon when all of a sudden there was a big crash and an outburst of yelling and cussing ("Get the f*** out of my house! GET OUT!"). I went to my open living room window to listen and learned that somebody had punched somebody else in the nose and a visitor had disrespected the person who lives there and somebody was gonna call their brother to start a lawsuit... It was an extremely intelligent conversation because they were both drunk. I actually had my phone in my hand at that point and was thinking about calling the police.

After a few minutes the offender left ("Do you have all your sh*t? Do you want your f***ing cigarettes?") and all was quiet. For about ten minutes.

There's a knock on the neighbor's door. He doesn't answer. More knocking. Still no answer. Knocking, talking, more talking from inside. The person living there obviously isn't going to open the door so the guy on the outside decides he's going to KICK IT IN! He was kicking with a vengeance and was shaking the entire building so then I DID call the cops.

By the time they showed up (only about 5 minutes later) the guy was gone again so there wasn't too much they could do. One officer came and talked to me while another talked to my neighbor (after knocking about four times and having to identify himself as the police department because that guy was not opening the door for ANYBODY at that point). I think my neighbor was giving a description of the guy so hopefully they caught him nearby but wow.

The ending was totally uneventful, actually. The next morning there was some more knocking and no answer but no way to know if that was the same guy.

I also have one brand new neighbor on the OTHER side of me who likes to play music with a lot of bass. I never used to hear my neighbors on either side of me but the loud music totally does it and I'm surrounded by young guys.

And the people BELOW me apparently smoke in their apartment because it comes up through my floor. I am constantly spraying Glade and lighting candles because it's disgusting.

I would LOVE to have a house with a garden and nobody sharing walls with me. In fact, I've been dreaming about that a lot lately.