Cigarettes And Suicide
Bleeding on the Floor
Age: 37
Gender: Female
Posts: 1725 | June 27th, 2007 at 07:32pm Hahaha, this thread is priceless. Some of these stories are great.
Me, well, where to start? It's quite possible that I have some of the worst neighbours in the world.
Okay, well - the block of units my husband and I live in is situated in the middle of town, with a pawn shop on one side and single men's quarters on the other. Then there's a dingy bar across the street, another dingy bar just around the corner, and the Aboriginal co-op centre just near there.
Now, as you can imagine, these things mean there are always a lot of really unsavoury characters hanging around - for those unfamiliar with the term, 'single men's quarters' is basically a dingy old fleabag motel that's been turned into 'apartments' and rented out by the week at a very cheap rate to single men who can't afford better housing. That being said, the majority can't afford decent housing (or won't get approved by real estate agents) because they are drug addicts, ex-cons, alcoholics, just really not the kind of people you would want to live anywhere near, let alone next door to. They're constantly wandering up and down the street (half of them have completely fried their brains from drug and alcohol abuse, and don't have a clue what day it is) at all hours, back and forth to and from the pub (I saw one resident go to the pub, come back ten minutes later with a carton of beer under his arm, and then two hours later go back for more - he did it four times that day), and if I'm sitting outside having a cigarette in my courtyard, and they notice me, they usually stop and try to talk - their conversation has ranged from seemingly innocent 'Nice day today' to 'Come on sweetie, come out here, I've got a present for you,' to 'Give you ten bucks for a blowjob?' to 'Know where I can score some cheap smack?' There's one guy in particular, an old guy who's always filthy, who refuses to keep walking until I've answered him. Luckily my husband threatened him one day and he hasn't stopped to chat since.
My husband and I have to call the police at least once a fortnight to get units out to break up drunken fights in the car park across the road - and we both hate police, but it's necessary to get their help if we want to get any sleep at night. A guy recently got stabbed on the footpath right ouside our house in a drunken argument. He wasn't hurt very badly, but still.
When we first moved in (I think it was our second night here), my parents came to drop some stuff off. We were standing in our courtyard, which has a 6-foot brick wall around it and a latched gate, when some random alco just unlatched the gate, walked right in, and asked to join the party. My husband had to get out a crowbar and threaten to wrap it around his head before he'd leave.
On another occasion, I was sitting on the couch and glanced out the window to see some shirtless guy squeeze past the bush in front of our fence, take a shirt of my husband's (which was an old shirt he was using as a rag while working on the car) off the fence, and walked off.
I was like, 'Babe, did you see that guy? He just stole your shirt,' and we were both standing at the window when he unlatched the gate, walked up to the door, and asked to use our phone. Umm, hell no, we told him, just leave, and he started getting panicked. "Is this your shirt?' he asked, and when my husband confirmed it was, he said, 'Oh, well, can I keep it then?' My husband was like, 'Yeah, whatever, just fuck off,' and he kept asking over and over again to come in and use the phone.
'I'm about to use the phone to call the cops and get you hauled off - get out of here before I do,' my husband told him.
He scampered off, only to reappear at the back door five seconds later, bashing at it, spitting through the kitchen window, hurling abuse at us because we wouldn't let him in. Bear in mind, this guy was scattered - he was very obviously soooo high on something he didn't know where he was, what he was doing, or what. It was frightening. 'Is Peter here?' he started yelling. 'No, Peter doesn't live here,' we told him. 'Yes, yes he does! Let me in! Let me talk to him! I just need to use your phone!'
We ended up calling the police to come clear him out, and they got him standing right outside our bak door, spraying himself with a garden hose. He must have been absolutely cooking from whatever drugs he was on.
Now, onto the neighbours themselves. Most of the people who live in this block of flats aren't too bad, when it comes down to it. The guy who lives on one side of us basically barricades himself in his house and never leaves it except to go to work and check his mail. He's really quiet and it took us about six weeks to realise somebody actually lived there - that's how invisible he is.
On our other side, however, is an Asian (or Indian or something, I've never got a good look at him) guy who has about four other people living there. Apparently that's typical of Asians - they rent a place and then move a bunch of their friends and family in to cut costs. They keep to themselves, except that I cna always hear them yabbering really loudly in their own language, which irritates me at times because I just want some peace and quiet, and I don't understand why they can't use indoor voices. Plus, the cooking smells coming from their flat at times makes me gag - recently the air stunk like rotten fish and garlic for three whole days - and being pregnant and overly sensitive to smell, I had a horrible time.
Behind us, there are two units that you never hear a peep from, except for when the couple in the middle are having a domestic - she chases him out into the carport and screams abuse at him, while he just gets in the car and peels out for a while. It's funny, if nothing else. The thing that annoys me about them is that they have two cars and only one carport, so if someone goes out, he'll park their car in someone else's spot, forcing whoever parks their car in the spot he's taken to park out on the street, where they run the risk of having their car stolen, keyed, or vandalised (friends of ours had their side mirrors taken off within fifteen minutes of them parking out front, my husband's car's been broken into repeatedly, the head unit and money stolen, and they've tried to start it and drive off in it). The thing is, their other car is a busted-ass heap of shit that he's been 'working on' for months, and it's still in bits and pieces strewn all over the carpark - no bonnet, panels missing, etc. He'd be better off parking IT in the street, at least nobody can steal a car that won't drive.
Then there's 'Tiff-aa-NEEEEEE!'... a woman and her partner, and their toddler daughter lived behind us until recently. Now, you never heard a peep out of the guy, but the woman was constantly screaming at her daughter - she never, EVER spoke civilly to that child, it was always, 'Tiffany! Get over here or I'll fucking belt you!' in a high-pitched, nasally squeal that drove me bananas. Almost as bananas as Tiffany's voice drove me - every time her mother yelled at her, she'd just sit on her butt, throw her head back and start wailing in an even more high-pitched, nasally, ear-piercing shriek than what her mother has.
Oh God, there were times I wanted to go over and threaten to report them to Child Services - just to get them to shut the fuck up for a day or two.
And then there's the nocturnal activities Tiffany's parents get up to... My husband and I were sitting on the couch one night watching a movie when we could hear odd noises. Tracking the noise to outside, we went into the kitchen and the noise became clear - Tiffany's mother screaming and moaning like a nympho, for a good half hour. This happened every night at exactly 10pm, for weeks and weeks and weeks.
Thankfully, they moved out a few weeks ago, but now there's another Asian crew moved in, and it's either one of the residents or a very frequent visitor who has no respect for anybody else using the carpark, and parks his car right in the driveway every day, blocking everyone else in.
Uh. Neighbours. Goddamn.
EDIT: Oh, and I totally forgot to mention the guy who is the spervisor of the single men's quarters. He's one of those alcoholics that wakes up at the crack of dawn as soon as the alcohol he drank last night wears off, then goes straight to the bottle shop as soon as it's open to get another bunch of bottles to get him through the day. He then proceeds to sit on his verandah or at his kitchen table (right next to the window) and scowl at me all day long every time I go outside for a cigarette. Then, every night, about half an hour after we switch our lights off (my husband and I have always had this ritual where we go to bed and either lay in the dark talking for a while, or we have a shag then talk for a while), we hear him schlumping down the stairs of his apartment and sneak over to put all his empty glass beer bottles in OUR bin. Now, I don't know about overseas, but in Australia you get ONE bin per household, and it gets emptied weekly. And, imagine seven (or 8, or 10, or 12) cartons (24 bottles) of glass bottles being dumped in our bin every week. Yeah. We don't have any room to put OUR rubbish in it. It's ridiculous. I hate him... he fills his own bin, then proceeds to fill ours up as well like it's no big deal.
I almost confronted him one time, I waited in the courtyard with all the lights turned off, and when he got to the bottom of his stairs I turned the light on and came out. He turned around, bo of bottles under his arm, and just walked right back up the stairs like he wasn't doing anything at all. Ugh. |
dont stop.
Salute You in Your Grave
Age: 29
Gender: Female
Posts: 4290 | June 29th, 2007 at 03:26pm Mood; Pissed Off.:^ ROFL. Can you say freak, much?
Our old neighbours were strange. The neighbours right next to us would park on our drive, and block the way to our path.
And the woman adjacent, well, here's a story:
[Me and Joe (My friend) playing out in back garden, having water fight]
Drunk neighbour: Yoush come hereee. Get me yurr mumma. Noww. I havve something of 'ers
[Me and Joe, freaked out] : Erm, 
Me: Umm, mum, the neighbour wants you. Over there. She says she has something of yours =/
Mum: =/ Hmm, okay, I'll be a minute. Christina, look after the kids.
[5 minutes later] Mum:  , she was drunk, and tried to hit on me. Bleh.
Me and Joe:  ...  ...  ... 
A few months later, she got drunk one night, and fell down the stairs, and died =/ uhh...wow?
I had a weird neighbor, and she would always go outside and just stand there, staring at people...
And when I passed by she would look at me funny, like she hated me or something.
I'm glad we moved, she was weird. |
. It's peaceful around here.
Dunno why tho... she was 52 
