I Don't Like Hearing My Neighbor Pee While He Screams...

Our move up here to Colorado was the definition of flying by the seat of your pants, since Bobby found out about the job offer about two weeks before he started. Bobby came up a month before I did, to get an apartment and start work. He did the drive in one day, arriving in our new town at 2 a.m. and crashing on a friend's couch. The next day he searched for apartments, and that afternoon signed a lease. As far as apartments go, it was/is perfect. It met/meets all of our requirements- two bedrooms, so we could have a study/guest room, washer and dryer, and preferably on the second floor. Plus, a rare treat in Colorado, it had a pool (less rare is the hot tub that we have been wearing out all winter). I have to say again, it's been a great place.

But the neighbors... oh, dear lord, the neighbors. First of all, the walls in our apartment are paper thin. Before you go saying "um, yeah, it's an apartment, par for the course" and all that, let me just say I have never before been able to hear, with crystal clarity, the conversations my next door neighbors have in the bathroom/dining room. It's like our medicine cabinet is some sort of tin can on a string game, or a speaker at the bank. I'm standing there, brushing my teeth, and random stranger lady screaming at her kids next door may as well be shouting in a megaphone in my ear. Oh, and speaking of random stranger lady screaming at her kids next door- yeah, you can bet I had to call the cops on her one night, when in the middle of our dinner we began to hear her screaming the most obscene, hateful, profanity laden things to her young son. Gross.

But the real winner in the weird game is our upstairs neighbor. Actually, let me just back up and offer a caveat that should have been offered straight out the gate- I am not uptight about noise. I understand we're in an apartment building, and I'm going to randomly hear T.V.'s, children frolicking, loud music, sometimes, in awkward moments, loud sex- it's cool, we're all people, living our lives in identical boxes right next to each other. But this guy? It's almost like a joke. It's as if he gets up and says "what kind of totally crazy, ridiculous things can I do today that would maximize my noise level?". He will randomly burst into running, and stomp from one side of the apartment to the other, slamming things, opening drawers, hitting walls. Sometimes I'll hear an explosive outburst  of expletives, screamed at the top of his lungs. Sometimes, out of nowhere, there will be a huge crash, as though he has arranged all the furniture in his home into a tower to amuse himself by watching it fall over. Other times he'll laugh, loudly, for several minutes- it doesn't sound like he's on the phone, or watching a T.V. It sounds like he's sitting alone in an apartment, laughing maniacally like an evil genius as he plans his next noise making session. When he goes to bed, he jumps on it- no, really, like a kid, it's right above our bedroom. Perhaps the worst though is that I ALWAYS know when he's going to urinate. Why do I know when my upstairs, stranger neighbor is going to urinate? Because it ALWAYS goes like this- he will suddenly scream an unintelligible stream of profanities, and then run, stomping, through the apartment, banging walls, slamming doors, etc. The bathroom door will fling open, the toilet lid will slam up, and then he urinates furiously into the toilet, spouting more curse words- it's purposeful pee, like, jet propulsion into the water. Afterward, he flushes, doesn't wash his hands, and then runs back through the house, yelling more profanities at the top of his lungs. At first, I just thought "oh, some older, differently abled gentleman with some mental issues, lives above us. No big deal". But no, I saw him- a sharply dressed businessman, who drives a really nice car and lives alone. I wonder if he has any idea how much of his peculiar at home habits I can hear...

Anyway, point made. My neighbors are loud, profanity filled people with anger issues and one of them abuses her children. But, the neighbors across from us are awesome people, and we made friends with Jenny at the hot tub here, so we've certainly also had a lot of luck here. However, when the lease renewal came and we found out that rent was increasing by almost $100 a month, we decided that our apartment complex was thinking a little too highly of itself- it's two years old, and bids itself as kind of a luxury/upscale place, but cone on now, an apartment is an apartment. After a week of researching and seeing new complexes, we found a new place that is far cheaper than here, with an extra bathroom for guests and a fireplace for winter. It's on acres and acres of land, our favorite bike trail runs right through it, there is an 18 hole frisbee golf course, a pool, a hot tub, racquetball, and tennis courts. So sorry, current apartments. But when we're surrounded by explosive, noisy anger and stomping/slamming/throwing/urinating, you can't go raising rent on us. Don't doubt our frugality, because we will deuce out on you faster than you can say "rent increase". Or "furious upstairs urination". Or "vile mommy next door".