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I'd like to touch on the "I live in an apartment" point:
I actually don't mind apartment-living. I enjoy the amenities and appreciate the conveniences, and I'm not generally bothered by other people living near me; I mean, it's all I've known for the past 13 years. I'm also accustomed to the annoyances that go with multi-family housing: the occasional rowdy party, stray dog poop in the grass, other residents disregarding the pool rules, people tailing me in the security gate, etc. But I draw the line at feces in the hallway:
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And let me tell you about the time the people in the apartment two floors below almost burned the place down: We had our balcony door open one evening and noticed a faint beeping noise and the slight but unmistakable odor of burning plastic. There was a guy in the courtyard looking up our way and he shouted to us that he thought there was a fire on the 3rd floor, and sure enough, we could see flickering shadows on the brick wall outside the window. We ran down to 3, knocked on the door just to make sure no one was home, then joined the guy in the courtyard, who by that time had already called the fire department. I noticed that the balcony door was barely open - smoke not yet visible - so this other guy climbed up the railings and pushed his way inside (not the best idea, but I assume he could see that the fire wasn't out of control). He unlocked the door from the inside and let Andy in with the fire extinguisher and they put it out. Crisis averted. About a minute later two fire trucks arrived.
Oh, and perhaps you heard about the loser that backed into my car last month (while it was parked overnight) and busted my tail light and then fled the scene? Thanks, asshole. Fortunately the damage to my car is minimal, but I'm still furious that somebody is guilty of a crime and got away with it. Anyway, I had the police come out and write a report.
Notice the parking space number. No, I didn't park like that. No, that is not my real tag number.
Most of the tail light fragments I found scattered about didn't belong to my vehicle, so I pieced them all back together and can say with a very high degree of certainty that the perp drives a newer model Toyota Corolla (unless the person hit more than one car, but that's highly improbable given the scene I encountered at 7:45am). That evening I walked through the parking deck three times: 6:30pm, 10pm, and 3am. Yep, 3 in the morning. I am that crazy. I walked around for half an hour looking totally suspicious with my clipboard and pen and made a note of every Corolla in the deck. I patrolled the place on my bike twice a day for a solid week but never saw any cars with a busted tail light. I was so obsessed that I even cruised the parking lots of the neighboring apartment complexes and office buildings. I sent my list of tag numbers to the property manager so he could cross-reference the master list and he replied that my list covered every Corolla registered (oh hell yes it did, you know I didn't get up at 3am for nothing). So that pretty much confirmed that the guilty party is not a resident. But I still ride up and down the parking deck on my bike, you know, just to be thorough.
And then last week there was a fire in a service van inside the parking garage which set off the sprinkler system and damaged part of the building. My bike was standing in about an inch of water in the stairwell.
And speaking of bikes - someone's been trying to steal Andy's Cannondale. He just purchased it from his boss. We parked it next to his old mountain bike (near mine, also old, in one of the stairwells) and we noticed that the plastic sheath part of the cable lock had been cut, like someone had taken a hack saw to it. Curious. We went for a short ride then locked both bikes to the rack using both locks. The next day the other lock had been cut down to the metal cable as well. So we moved the bikes and although I haven't checked on them today, they were still there yesterday.
Last but not least, a few weeks ago, some idiots took glass bottles into the pool area and *shocker,* the bottles broke, and the pool had to be drained and cleaned. It was closed for a week during a ridiculous heat-wave right before the 4th of July. I'm pretty sure these people know that glass is prohibited and they just don't give a shit. Seriously, have you never lived in an apartment before? On a similar note, some woman actually put her dog in the pool. Not next to the pool, but in the frickin' water. Hey lady, wanna know why there aren't any other dogs around? Because it's against the law to have pets in the pool area. Management is actually issuing fines now, and the best part is that they encourage other residents to take photos of people breaking the rules. Guess who has a new hobby?
