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• Thursday, July 16, 2009 07:08 PM

  I used to live in a place like this

  I lived on the first story of a two-story duplex. It was on the side of a hill, so one-half of the apartment was halfway underground. This meant my windows were at the foot level of the upstairs neighbors' side-yard.

  My idiot landlord loved dogs, so she had an affinity for renters who owned dogs, and no concern for how this would affect the other tenant. The people who moved in above me told my landlord they had one small dog. They lied. They had a large dog, and also had a huge pitbull. I would walk into my apartment, open the window and the pitbull in the sideyard would see me, come right up to the window, and growl homicidally.

  I called my landlord, told her about the pitbull, and she got very upset, saying they'd lied to her. It wasn't long before they were gone. Great, right?

  Wrong, because she didn't learn anything from the experience. She rented to another set of people who also had dogs, AND had 5-year-old kids. These kids would jump on the bed at all hours. At first I thought the squeaking bed springs were due to people having an epic sex session. But nobody could last that long (20 minutes of squeaking bedsprings?!) so I reasoned out that it must be kids.

  The irony of being in this situation is that (1) You're the one who's suffering, and (2) When you complain, you are made out to be the bad guy. It sucks having to walk up, knock on the door, as say, "Can you please try to lower the noise level?" People look at you like you're the biggest jerk in the world even though you're their neighbor.

  If the landlord isn't attuned to these problems by now, then he/she never will be, and you might as well leave. Save up enough money to mortgage a free-standing home.

  —Xrandadu Hutman Read Xrandadu Hutman's other letters
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