Neighbor from hell

Apartment living. 

Everyone should experience it once in their life time. It’s one of those life experiences that you will never forget.

You share a closeness with people that is beyond what you are looking for.

The walls are paper thin. You can hear what people are doing and saying at all hours. 

You can hear everything. When they pee, what television show they are watching, what video game they are playing at three in the morning, when they are arguing, when they are having sex...you can hear it.

I once had a neighbor that screamed at her boyfriend and cried hysterically all the time. 

She threw dishes at him one night at one in the morning. 

She once ran through the courtyard screaming for help, as if her boyfriend was going to kill her.

The police were called so many times, I lost count. 

One night, in particular, I decided I had had enough with her screaming. I yelled at her to be quiet from my patio door.

Wrong move.

Never mess with a woman you have never met and who happens to be drunk.

She proceeded to scream profanities at me and stormed down to my apartment, banging on my door.

The police said they were too busy to come out.

They are so reliable.

There was no altercation. She went back to her apartment when I wouldn’t answer the door and it was quiet the rest of the night.

The next night was different.

She decided to confront me outside my apartment. She claimed that I had called her a “bitch”. I replied that she must have heard her echo because I never used that word. 

This made her even more angry.

She, then, placed her body so close to mine I could feel her breath on my face. She started to shove me backwards with her body, while screaming profanities and saying she wanted to fight.

Her boyfriend, finally, pulled her off of me, while my boyfriend stepped in-between us.

This was all happening at my doorstep.

I went inside to call the police, as she yelled to me that she was going to “kill” me if I called her a “bitch” again.

The police still would not come.

Apartment security did.

The manager of security told me on the phone that they had dealt with her many times before and he thought she “needed therapy”.

Apparently, her routine is to scream and pick fights with her neighbors and then act as if nothing is wrong once security shows up.

I wish I would have known this information before I moved in.

As the manager predicted, that was exactly what she did.

The next morning, I filed a long report with my apartment manager about what had happened that night and all of the incidents I had ever heard coming from her apartment in the previous months, including the smashing dishes and the fight I had heard her pick with another neighbor.

Management placed a notice on her door that read if there was any noise reported in the next week she would be forced to move out or she could terminate her lease with no penalties. They said there was nothing more they could do in the meantime because California has so many laws to how much they can do.

Needless to say, she kept quiet for the next week. 

However, my landlord was great about the situation. I told her I didn’t feel safe anymore. So, she broke my lease without charging me and set me up with a new apartment, moving me away from my crazy neighbor.  

One of the women in the office told me, later, that my neighbor had moved out shortly after I moved to my new apartment.

Word of advice: Find out about your neighbors before you move anywhere.