The Neighbors

Back in, I dunno, October or so, the guy who lived directly across the hall from me moved out of his apartment because part of his ceiling caved in.

Seriously.

We were having pretty cray rains and his living room wall was just a waterfall. It was ridiculous. I saw it for myself.

Anyway, I was a big fan of Mr. 71. He seemed to drink a lot, but was really quiet about it so I didn't mind. And he came and went at weird hours so I never really had awkward confrontations with him in the hallway. He kept to himself and had a cute kitty and he was everything a neighbor should be.

But he moved to a different unit in a different building after his roof mishap and the apartment has been empty ever since.

Which has been nice, really. My roommate and I have our end of the hall all to ourselves.

At least, we did. Until yesterday.

Yesterday new tenants moved in and I already don't like them. I saw them and they struck me as shady and my roommate agreed. We just don't know what, exactly, is shady about them. We can't put our fingers on it at all. And it's horrible because it makes me feel like a judgmental jerk.

But they moved in anyway and I realized that I've become kind of defensive of my building. I don't much care for the people who live in it, but they're apart of it just as I'm apart of it and I see new people as kind of intruders for some reason. And I don't get it.

I always had this fantastic idea of living in an apartment and being super buddy-buddy with the neighbors and hanging out at each others' places and stuff, but it's really nothing like that at all. My life is not an episode of Friends. Imagine that.

It's mostly families that live in my building, so maybe that has something to do with it. But still, I find I really don't like even running into them in passing on my way in or out.

Anyway, I feel awkward especially now with the new neighbors because they're like RIGHT THERE. Like across the hall. I've never really lived directly across the hall from anybody before. It's weird and I don't like it.

And, here's the icing on the cake, the shady new neighbors have a dog. I haven't seen it, but I heard it and it's a smallish dog that only takes a break from yapping its head off when it whines about something.

Sigh.