Sketchy Neighbor/Possibly Moving in 2016

The ball finally dropped with work as far as hours go. I was getting about 28-30 hours a week and this week I’m working 3 days for a total of 16 hours, and next week–get this–I have 6 hours over 2 SHIFTS.

As in–one of my shifts was 2 HOURS LONG.

I emailed the store with my concern. I thought of all the possibilities (am I helping with a class ? Is it a meeting ? Is it a review ? Is it training even though I thought I finished ?) Ashley emailed me back and said it was an oversight and I was actually working 5-9. I think they did it on purpose and wanted to see if I noticed. I didn’t even think they were allowed to schedule me for less than 3 hours (again, unless it’s a meeting). I don’t like this. I was working my ass off the last 4 months and now I have 2 weeks where I’m hardly doing anything. But I suppose I don’t mind the break, even if it means I don’t make money.

I had like 4 women on the same day ask if I had kids and then go into the typical “you don’t know what you’re missing.” Three of them I just held my tongue but the 4th I actually politely said to her, “I do want kids but I’m not financially stable and I’m unable to have children, anyway.” Like the typical reply, she said, “Oh, but you could adopt !” And again, in my mind I’m thinking, “I just said I’m not financially stable–where would I get the $15,000-$20,000 for adoption ??” But I don’t think people mean to be mean… I think they are just ignorant and not of their own fault if they’ve never had to look into it.

Cori is graduating, however, on the 29th. It’s also our 3-year-anniversary. His brother is (hopefully) coming out for the graduation, too.

Spent the day spraying the apartment for bugs. We’ve never had a big problem with bugs but I’ve been seeing ants (haven’t seen ants before) and the weird thing is, we’ve only ever seen them on the walls near the ceiling, which almost makes me think they are coming from the apartment above us.

Which reminds me… pretty sure there is something going on with drugs above us. I finally had to bring my concern to the landlord. In September, I was trying to leave to pick Cori up from class and there was a dude screaming his head off for Ethan (above us), saying things like, “I know you’re up there ! Get down here ! You can’t avoid me anymore !” and then I overheard the very suspicious conversation that ensued (apparently Ethan owes a lot of people a lot of money). Weird as that was, that was the first time I thought something was really going on. I knew he was home practically 24/7 since July (and he was also waking us up in the middle of the night vomiting upstairs for a few months–but that seems to have stopped). Other weird things have happened, too–I’ve been noticing him in different cars the last several months, or other people driving his car. He meets a lot of random people for a few seconds at all hours of the day or night out on the street in their cars. And of course somehow he is still paying rent despite not having a job.

It obviously seems like drugs but I don’t smell anything weird or find anything weird. Could be prescription, could be something else. But what did it for me was when a week ago at 2 AM, while Cori and I are trying to sleep, I hear this thumping on the window in the bedroom. It sounds closer, then further. Now, our building is built on a hill so even though the front of the building is ground level, the back of the building is higher up and the basement is ground level. I went to see what it was and went to the bathroom to look out the window and noticed the back light is on. Then I see why–there is a random dude throwing a frisbee at our and Ethan’s windows (back there our window is technically 2nd level and Ethan’s is 3rd level).

My first thought was, “OMG is he casing the place ?” My second thought is he has a gun and he noticed me seeing him. My third thought was that I might even forgive him if he looked like a drunk college kid, but no, he looked about Ethan’s age, maybe 40. He keeps trying to hit Ethan’s window above us but hits ours, too. Then me, being concerned, hear Ethan moving around and I head to my front door. I looked through the peephole and Ethan opens the door for the guy, they hurry upstairs, and within 30 seconds the guy leaves with the suitcase he already had, and an additional red bag I didn’t see him have in the back with him. Then he wandered off to what I assume was his car (couldn’t see that far). If he was just a friend, couldn’t he have called or texted Ethan instead of act like a sketchy creeper ?

So yeah, on Wednesday I told Mike. He was aware that there’s weird shit going on with Ethan and he doesn’t plan on offering to renew Ethan’s lease. I know Mike is already upset that Ethan has let his cats tear the apartment up, but he said the same things I was going to tell him (besides me mentioning the 2 AM creeper) and he also actually changed the main door lock because he was concerned that Ethan made copies of the keys for people.

That being said, still not sure if I really want to move this year. I do, I really do. I like this apartment and if we do stay another year, it’s fine, but I’m so cramped. I want another bedroom, 2 bathrooms or at least an additional half bathroom, and central HVAC and a dishwasher. Also grounded outlets. OMG I didn’t even consider the outlets when we moved in; I don’t think I’ve ever lived somewhere that didn’t have all grounded outlets. But we still don’t know what Cori’s job situation will be and it may be nice to save some money, since we assume any place that fits our criteria will be around $1000-1100 a month (roughly $300-400 more than what we pay now).

Funny thing is, Mike said if we ever wanted to bring Evie (since he’s met Evie when my parents visited those couple times), he would let us and actually waive the deposit but charge a monthly pet rent of $25. Makes me wonder why he told me differently about cats, but that was still before our first lease was through when I asked him (he sounded like he didn’t want more cats in the apartment and said something about a $75/mo cat fee). Only thing is that since Evie had her eye removed, I would hate to upset everything for her. And we have wood floors so we would have to put rugs down everywhere, and when it comes down to it, the apartment is already cramped for the two of us at under 600 square feet, so I wouldn’t want to have a 50 pound dog here, too (even though it’s easy to get in and out).

I also actually really like our particular neighborhood. We’re in the “better” part of Clifton and can walk to restaurants, the post office, CVS, banks, a movie theater, and soon a co-op will begin business that they’ve been trying to build for a few years now. And the houses are so neat… many built from 1900-1920 and even some that are older and more grandiose further away. Lots of families with kids and dogs here. So I would miss that. Most of the places we’ve looked to move to are more typical pre-planned apartment communities and since I’m used to living in single-family housing and neighborhoods, it’s kind of nice to be in an apartment but also live in a typical mostly single-family home neighborhood (there are a few additional 4-unit 50’s buildings like ours and a couple duplexes but they still look like detached homes).

So… we will see what we think the best move is. Or perhaps the best “not move.”

Last updated July 11, 2016