Neighbors

We all have them.  You share a wall, a ceiling, a fence, or a squiggly line written on a property deed.  Own or rent, someone is your neighbor.  Some neighbors are great, they bring your dog back and maybe even laugh about the food it ate off their kitchen counter.  They offer to split costs for repair.  They loan you sugar and the only music they play loudly is music you love and you wish they would turn it up even louder.  I have had many of those neighbors and I remember them happily.  Many continue to be great friends long after we stopped sharing a property line.

And then there are the other ones.

My wife and I lived in a loft in NYC with a wall of windows along one side.  Turns out if you looked at the 'right' angle you could use the building next to us to peer into the loft next to you.  We had a peeping tom in the loft next to us in NYC.  I would look out our window only to see him staring out his window at us.  I would usually just wave or make sure he got a nice view of my hairy butt.  That was usually good for a temporary halt to his peeping ways.

In Chicago we lived in a row house.  To the East we had great neighbors.  To the West we had a schizophrenic woman.  Not only was she legally crazy (she is currently safely locked up) but she refused to do any maintenance on her home and owned two of the loudest barky beagles EVER.  What does no maintenance look like you might ask---the mailman refused to deliver mail to her door because the front steps and deck were in such disrepair as to be a clear and present danger.  He just tossed the mail near her door.  She of course didn't ever collect her mail.  Yuck.

Which gets us to our present neighbor.  The ones that don't ever put their trash can in their garage no matter how many times the bears rip it open--nor do they clean up the trash the bear leaves about after their dumpster diving meal.  Does a bear breaking into their home encourage better trash management?  Nope.  The ones whose son broke into our place before we started renting it and drunk the owners booze.  And then have the balls to ask us for a key so they could use the exercise-game room in our home.  And the ones who came home drunk last night and left their car stranded on the road that leads to 4 homes (obviously mine included).

You might notice that there is no way to squeeze a car past their stranded car.  I was unable to drive a car from my home at 9:10 am.  First off I had to figure out whose car it was---stupid me I obviously should have gone right to the bad neighbor.  Anyhow after heading to 'that' neighbors house and knocking on the door I was greeted by our neighbor who looked like she was auditioning for a female reprise of 'The Hangover', she mentioned that is was her friends car, and it was stuck and they left it last night cause it was stuck (amature X-Gamers).  I told her she needed to get it moved and she allowed as to how she thought that was a good idea.  It took her hungover brain about 1 hour to figure out how to call a towing company--and viola 2 hours late I was able to use my car.  Yea.

I understand that shit happens.  I am less sympathetic when it happens to an adult who doesn't wake up until I bang on her door to remind her that she left a car blocking the road.  This is an adult, and a parent and my neighbor.  Arg.

Neighbors can be great.  But they can also be horrible.  And in today's world they can be super duper pain.  There are a number of duplexes for sale in Aspen with multi million dollar price tags.  Just think about buying a duplex for $5m only to find out that your neighbors rents his place out all the time and mostly to crazed internet sensations.  How much does it suck to find whatever today's version of MTV's Real World is being filmed next to you.... constantly.  Just as bad but less costly, I have had friends who find that their camp site is next to someone who loves loud music and shooting guns at all hours.  How peaceful is your car camping trip when the next site over is hosting the rejects from Duck Dynasty?  

Cherish your good neighbors, because you never know when the cast from the hangover + Duck Dynasty are going to move in.