Apartment Living

For the past seven years, I have been living in an apartment of some sort. In that amount of time, I have enjoyed the benefits of apartment living (people come and fix things for free, no maintenance, my amazing roommates in college, etc.). Unfortunately, the negatives of living in an apartment outweigh the positives and over the past six months, we have had the feeling the some greater power is trying to tell us that it’s time to purchase our first house.

Currently, we live in a three bedroom, two bathroom apartment on the second floor of our building. We’ve been living there for about 18 months now. The first year was going great until Stanley moved in above us and became our very first sleep disturbance. Once per week, Stanley and his lover found it necessary to have steamy love making sessions for hours (I am NOT exaggerating, it was hours). These sessions did not take place at 10:00 PM when I was still awake and watching TV in the living room, no, these sessions happened at 3:00 AM and the creaking and screaming was loud enough to wake me up (that’s how we found his name was Stanley). No amount of banging on the ceiling with the broom would shut those two up.

When Stanley moved out, Adam and I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, we could go to sleep without being disturbed by middle of the night sexcapades. Then, the new neighbors moved in…two women, and their four children, all under the age of eight. Suddenly, it seemed like a rodeo was going on above us at all hours of the day. Jumping on beds, running laps around the living room, dropping who knows what heavy objects and children’s screeches have become a part of the ambiance in our apartment. Then, they got a puppy. A six week old, poofy, small, whiny puppy. This puppy is not a quiet puppy, it yips its head off…ALL. NIGHT. LONG.

Wednesday night, however, was the last straw. On Wednesday, I left work early with a stuffy and pounding head. After resting for most of the afternoon, I headed to bed around 9:30, hoping I would feel better in the morning. At 12:30 AM, a car alarm started going off. This happens frequently, and usually the owner of the car shuts the alarm off within five minutes or so. Not last night. The car alarm kept going and going. Finally, I called the local police station. Around 1:45 AM, the police officer showed up, ran the plate, walked up to one of the apartments, knocked on the door and the owner came out and turned off the alarm. How in the world can you be so ignorant, that you don’t notice your own car alarm going off for over an hour?

And so, it has been decided that we will save every single penny we can in an attempt to buy a house when this lease is up, because I cannot take it anymore.