Neighbours.. is it wrong to want to bury an Icepick in them?

At some point, almost as a right of passage most people can tell you a horror story about an exceptionally bad neighbor they once had. Sometimes they may be of the fairly innocent variety, borrowing your stuff without returning it, stuff like that. If you’ve ever had the misfortune to have lived in an apartment they you may even have more than one bad experience.

I lived in an apartment at several different times in my life, but I remember one in particular. The renter directly above me was an elderly lady who, seemed to have mastered the art of levitation because I NEVER heard a peep from her, on occasion I might hear her TV during a warm summers day when everyone’s windows were open. Other than that, she was virtually silent. I imagined her moving light as air around her apartment with the stealth of a Ninja, getting her tea and toast. I’m exaggerating, she wasn’t silent but she was plenty quiet and then all at once she became too quiet. I mean like really, really quiet, the kind of quiet that is deafening.

I found out later the same week I had become aware of her silence, that she had died. which meant I would be getting a new upstairs neighbor. Now downstairs neighbors are generally OK, and unless the walls are fantastically thin, there is a certain amount of acceptable noise you can tolerate from them as well. But upstairs, well that’s a whole new ballgame. Try spending a few hours in an apartment below hardwood floors, with toddlers. You’ll be looking for the classifieds before the end of the second hour.

So the new renter moved in about a month later, I had been working a lot and hadn’t had the chance to meet him yet. I say him because this idiot had heavy feet, the absolute, exact opposite of my sweet, elderly ninja. He didn’t walk – he pounded everywhere. Early morning, afternoons, dinner-time, late night… just pounded his feet with every step. Not only that, but somehow he seemed able to take more steps than the average person. I’m not sure if it was a trick of the acoustics or some weird echo caused by his Jurassic footsteps, but his apartment layout was identical to mine and I could get from the living room to the kitchen in about 10 or 12 steps, he crossed the same area in like 40 steps at least.. just ridiculous. He kicked it up a notch when he had the carpets ripped up and exposed the hardwood floors, AND THEN proceeded to wear his shoes every time he moved. Really, he never took them off, he had them on getting out of bed…. or what I assumed was bed, some nights he wouldn’t even sleep at ball, just kept walking around… I swear it’s the truth. As the capper, it sounded to me, like he exclusively wore tap shoes… such a bastard….

I tried knocking on his door a few times, but he never answered, even when I could clearly hear him clomping around in his ridiculous tap shoes. I was at a loss and ultimately, it caused me to move out earlier than I wanted to. I was going to leave at the end of June but to help save my sanity, I ended up giving notice and moving out at the end of beginning of March. Never did end up see the jerk in person, BUT three days later I came back to the apartment to drop off my spare keys to the super and as I was leaving I looked back and managed to snap a picture of the moron…. I swear he was laughing, knowing he forced me out…

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Have a great day.

PS – Be sure to check out the Cult I’m starting…. The Celestial Temple of the Elemental Tome