The Different Types Of People In Your Apartment Building
The Person With All The Animals
Did you know that some people treat their apartments like little rent-controlled zoos? They just take in all the animals they can squeeze into that tiny space with the shower in the kitchen. Multiple birds, cats, gerbils, dogs, even though the lease says no pets. There’s nothing wrong with having pets — I can’t wait until I can get a little French bulldog, so cute. But limits, people. You don’t want to be the person who died in that apartment and all you had were gerbils and boxes of moth balls.
The Person Who Has Very Loud Sex
Either the walls in your apartment are too thin or this person is just way too loud. Like I know it’s good and everything, so congratulations. But do you need to be praising Yahweh, singing Christmas carols, throwing pans around and drilling a hole in the wall at the same time? No tea no shade! Sometimes sex sounds can be funny, though, especially when you know who lives in the apartment where this bodily music is produced. You run into them in the stairway — they know you hear them, you know you hear them — and maybe you’re even slightly turned on. I once lived in an apartment where I couldn’t tell if the girl moaning was an actual, real life female or if it was some horny nerd masturbating vigorously to porn at very high decibels.
The Person Who You Are Sure Lives There But Who You Never See
The first truth about living in apartments is that we are nosey people. Or maybe it’s just me who’s nosey — don’t project, Madison. I want to know what you are doing in there, not gonna front! But the invisible neighbor presents a real predicament. They don’t make any noise, you never see them, but you are sure they live there because the mailman leaves packages for them downstairs and they disappear enough so you know that somebody is getting them. The question is who.
The Exhibitionist
One thing I love about living in New York is that you get to peek into other people’s apartments. Don’t act like you’ve never done this. You’re just strolling by and people keep their windows open just so, and when you look in there they are, washing the dishes completely naked. Hi! My favorite apartment exhibitionists, though, are the people who frequently go out on the fire escape in their underwear, often accompanied by their boyfriend/girlfriend and make out for all of the people sitting in their kitchens to see. I have eaten many a dinner to the visuals of people going at it on the fire escape. It’s a nice treat.
The Person Who Always Ignores You
Look, we don’t need to be BFFs but can we at least acknowledge each other as human beings sharing planet Earth? The ignorer always manages to look away when you get into the elevator/stairwell with them or busts out their iPhone 5 to respond to a life changing email.
The Person Who Is Always Smoking Weed
The Person Who Makes Loud, Indiscernible Noises
When I moved into my apartment in Brooklyn I got so annoyed at the person above me because he made these ridiculous noises. Not sex noises or even a zoo of animals noises. This sounded like somebody was constantly rolling balls and scratching at the floor, 24 hours a day. What are you doing!!! But then I put two and two together. Being the nosey neighbor I am, I saw that he got a lot of packages from skate shops and sometimes when I saw him in the stairwell, where he would ignore me, obviously, he carried a skateboard. So…you’re skateboarding through the apartment. Really.
The Person Who Is Having Way More Fun In Their Apartment Than You Are Having In Your Apartment
This person has like 10,000 fabulous friends and they’re always over. People are always laughing and the smell of Brazilian food emanates from the apartment. You don’t get paid until next week so you’re having a cup of soup for dinner tonight. You can hear that some people are speaking a fancy foreign language and you can tell that a lot of them definitely hot. They’re blasting the new Hot Chip and you can even smell a little bit of weed. But guess what? YOU ARE NOT INVITED.