It's hot in LA right now. Like, record-breaking hot. It always amazes me how much one's environment has an impact on one's well-being. For instance, in this heat, there's really not much you can do except to just hole up in some air conditioning (if possible), drink lots of water, and take it easy. The heat is so much that it's hard to even think straight. The heat is expected to break in the next couple of days, which is good. That'll allow me -- and the 8 million some residents of the greater LA area -- to relax a little bit. But one recent occurance in my environment will definitely help my well-being.
See, my noisy neighbors are moving out.
When the recession hit, there were at least 5 vacancies in my building. This is a rare occurance for our little mountain oasis of an apartment building in Northeastern Los Angeles. When you combine a pretty well maintained building with great views and rent control, then you tend to get a bunch of working professionals who want to live in quiet and harmony. In the 10+ years Tom and I have lived in our place, we've seen a bunch of neighbors come and go... but a bunch more have stayed put. And then we noticed several apartments have laid empty. And our landlord would look more and more frayed and dishelved. The economy got worse and worse and then the apartments started getting filled.
First, it was the friendly young (gay) couple with a roommate and two dogs, a first for the building. Not the gay couple, obviously, but the dogs. The landlord had a very strict No Dogs policy, but desperate times, blah-blah-blah, and boom, welcome to your canine companinions. They were super nice, very polite, and could rock out on the Rock Band as well as the next people. Then some more folks started moving in... with kids. Now, kids weren't a regular staple of the building. But after the dogs came in, then came the children. The first two units that had kids were fine; I could hear the kids in the afternoon or sometimes in the morning, but once night rolled out, not a thing.
That was until Molly* moved in to Unit #4. *(not her real name)
Molly and her semi-adorable squeaky-voiced daughter moved into the unit directly across Tom and I. A young Latina single mom in her early-to-mid 20's, Molly was a quiet person when we'd come across her in the parking lot directly below our units. Her daughter would see either one of our cats (or the stray cats who would wander around the building) and shout "KITTY! KITTY! KITTY! MAMMA THAT'S A KITTY KITTY KITTY!" It was cute... the first couple of times. Molly would always have her windows and her front door wide open (with the screen door shut, of course). And that's when we'd hear the shouting. Molly would yell at her daughter in Spanglish. I took French in high school and my Spanish is limited to food items, so I'll do my best to translate to you what she'd yell at her daughter.
"WHAT ARE YOU DOING [QUESADILLA]?! PICK THAT UP RIGHT NOW, [ENCHILADA]!"
"OOOOOOH, [TORTA], GET IN HERE RIGHT NOW!"
"[CHILI CON CARNE], WHY IS THAT IN YOUR MOUTH?!"
"[TACO] [TOSTADA] [FRIJOLES] [TAQUITO], DAMN IT!"
Each one of these instances would follow with a high pitched cry from the daughter, and full-on gutteral scream as well. And this happened at lease 4 times a week. The most common thing Molly would yell is "HEY!" One night during the middle of summer, I was watching Community, and my enjoyment of the fast-witted humor of Joel McHale kept getting interrupted by "HEY!" coming from Molly's unit.
"HEY!" Pause. "HEY!" Pause. "HEY!!!!!" Double Pause. "HEY!!!!!"
I then went to my window and shouted at the top of my lungs "HEYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!"
That shut her up for the rest of the night. But the next evening, she was right back at it. I thought of how I could go about talking to her about the noise, about how she could try to be respectful of the rest of her neighbors. I was totally forgiving of any and all noises coming from her place during the day. But when night rolls around and you want some quiet time, the last thing you need is to hear someone shouting and yelling at their kid. I was seriously toying with calling Child Protective Services, but what would I say? The mom yells a lot? The kid cries a lot? I cried a lot as a kid, my poor parents. I sent out an e-mail to my neighbor friends here about the noise from Unit #4 and how we should approach our landlord about it.
But apparently, I don't have to do that, because fate has stepped in. Yesterday, as Tom and I were hanging out in our living room I looked through the vertical blinds (not my choice) to the doorway of Unit #4 and I saw a couple guys carrying chairs out of the unit. Then the same guys were carrying more stuff. And more stuff. And more. Yup, Molly is moving out.
The moment that realization sunk in, my shoulders relaxed. I realized how much stress and annoyance had built up in me around this one very loud irritant in my life. Now, I know someone even worse can move into her place and my tension level could get higher. But the fact that Molly is going someplace else makes me just sink back into my chair in a very relaxed state. Now if we can get the weather back out of triple digits, my night would be complete.
congrats. :) i so wish i could move into your building. but napoleon would eat it.
Posted by: katie d | September 28, 2010 at 05:43 AM