In the renter’s class, nine years later…
The goal is to update myself with respect to my 2007 post, “Flippant Remarks from the Rental Class.” The tragedy is that almost all that I can see changed is worse than affairs in 2007. Climactically (and melodramatically) I am stricken significantly with a hatred for the very concept of a “neighbor.” My goal is to look back on these words and laugh, truly-truly in a better place in this world.
The most significant change is related to the un- and/or under-employment of my neighbors. My neighbors are ‘young people’ mostly in their 30s. My upstairs neighbor, the person who is charge of my ability to sleep and is therefore my chief torturer, is either underemployed or unemployed. She seems to always be “home.” It is possible that she has some kind of health-related, government-based financial support because she often has coughing fits that I can hear quite clearly through the wood of the apartment house we “share.”
She definitely has shared her apartment with more than three different occupants so far, many staying for months at a time. I am certain this was done illegally (or at least in violation of her lease) but Roque and Mark is not the same company it was in 2007 and has done nothing to investigate the possibility that one of its tenants might be engaging in some kind of Airbnb-like behavior. Because I am a Black man I assume that Roque and Mark may have some, inside-baseball sympathy for such a poor person (because my pauper upstairs is a “white woman”) and is turning a blind eye for the sake of the housing crisis in Los Angeles—as long as the ‘right’ people are affected.
I can tell that my upstairs neighbor has company from the loud creaking of the wooden floor beams in the wooden ‘house’ that many might mistake for an apartment “complex.” I can also tell she has a companion when she tries to have a “private” conversation, early in the morning or late at night. This “valiant” behavior is a refusal to accept the reality of the fucked-up living situation: none of us can afford to have a private conversation, bitch! This house is built with rooms right on top of each other which is logical and economical—but I have learned through years of torture that this stacking of rooms—especially bedrooms, made entirely of sound-conducting wood—can be horrible. I have developed a bitch-made dread for going to sleep. I consider it impossible to be a morning person without drugging myself. Were it not for my unusual employment situation at the moment, my ability to earn decent money would be seriously threatened.
My poor female upstairs is often the host of an even poorer male (she will also sleep/cough in the sitting room and generously allow guests to take her bedroom—her guests sonically/architecturally dumped on top of me). I can hear his louder stomping/creaking of the floor boards when he decides to move around at 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning like it is a bustling sunny day. The vigor in the late-night movement is never the behavior of professional persons who should sleep in order to go to work in the morning. The loud commotion is clearly, childishly self-centered and self-entertaining as a distraction away from the truth of their squalid situation. It is like meeting a dented, sun-damaged, unwashed car on the freeway with expired license-plate stickers as it swerves into your lane, cutting you off from moving ahead—and the car keeps swerving in and out of your lane sporadically for hours.
And, yes, there are two small dents in my bedroom ceiling from me banging out my desire to sleep. But, after some thoughtful representative at Roque and Mark sent me a letter telling me to stop this and call the police instead (which was in white-trash retaliation to my initial written complaint), I do nothing in response to this horrible, bitchy person—nothing except hate her with a self-destructive passion. (I cannot see myself calling the police about this matter because the noise happens sporadically and travels vertically—not out in the street like loud music would.) I hate her with an intensity that would make a Sith Lord salivate. I despise all my apartment neighbors because I assume (from over a decade of experience) all of them are just as thoughtless as my current torturer—but hating is different from despising. I hate this shitty person with her tuberculosis-like cough and it is crippling me, slowing down the work requiring solitude and reflection.
The last time I had this problem was in the last apartment house I “lived” in. The similarity of the problem is supernaturally terrifying. These creatures seem to be following me. This is animal-territorial, narcissistic, trailer-trash, wannabe succubus shit. You see some folks just know they are going nowhere so they live “life” to the fullest as a last gasp before youth implodes, shitting and eating the same place, overflowing crapulence in small, cheap places not properly designed for their “joy.” From an armchair-architect point of view, Los Angeles (earthquake country) is full of wooden apartment *houses *masquerading as sound-dampening steel or concrete apartment complexes. I feel like I would have to leave Los Angeles county entirely (to the east, to the desert) to find relative peace, far away from this rabble of noise-polluting adult children.
Notably, my upstairs neighbors (including the last one) have cheap, noisy beds. What keeps me from completely going berserk is the fact these people did not get these crappy beds on purpose—just to torture me (often waking me from a deep sleep several times a night just because they are moving in bed—not doing anything sexual …most of the time). They have these cheap beds because these are poor people. I must realize that my failing attempts to “live” beneath my means in this predatory, “modern” economy would put me on a collision course with such poor people. I must realize that I’ve taken downstairs apartments is because of my children (which is an out-of-date excuse because they have outgrown stomping and romping as toddlers). I must realize that I am getting too old to play house with narcissistic neighbors. This is a deadly game.
Solutions? Apart from a cultural revolution related to meditation and making silence and grace sacred, I see no viable solutions to this way of death. (Someone visiting my upstairs neighbor started throwing around weights and jump-roping recently—do you understand what I mean by poor now? …can’t afford a gym membership?) When people actually commune in a common living space they have to be on the same cultural page. Americans have a barbaric, deep-seated tradition of abstract and concrete violence that towers monumentally over a nice, polite downstairs neighbor with a smile knocking on an upstairs door, beaming with love, asking for a little peace and quiet.
There is a difference between cultured, civil people who have made an innocent mistake and fucking barbarians. I have “lived” with savage rubes of all skin colors for decades. I know when I can reason with a person and when to keep myself out of handcuffs (or the hospital). My desire to be close to the ocean puts me at odds with every kid who can drive a car from the Midwest or deep south, looking to California as a fresh start, a land of opportunity (for human garbage, literally dumped on top of me every fucking night). And I have not even started on my next-door neighbor and his stomp-walking girlfriend that just moved in a few months ago—where are these people buying these cheap-ass beds!
And, oh yeah—speaking of my job situation—I leave my night torture at the apartment to suffer from even more noise pollution in my ridiculously busy office! The sense of depression and helplessness has never been this strong in my entire adult life! Welcome to 2017! So, in full anticipation of never writing about this again because problems like this will go away never to be replaced by something worse, here are a few random points:
- The first long-term and probably illegal guest of my upstairs neighbor was an African-American woman who clearly was suffering from a major illness. Have you ever heard a humidifier vibrating a kitchen? My neighbor allowed her to occupy her bedroom which allowed her watch television all night and into the wee hours of the morning (since I will be accused of being a “racist” for writing this article, I will say that African-Americans are fond of going to sleep with the TV on way more than white folks—it’s like being comforted by those white voices and images—an electronic companion.)
- The second long-term guest of my upstairs neighbor was an Afro-Caribbean lover of loud reggae music who also took over the bedroom (possibly with yet another poor, sad white woman). He really, really knew how to keep me awake by creaking the living hell out of bedroom floor beams—like he was assembling his own boat in the middle of the night without hand tools.
- The third and current guest of that piece of shit upstairs is probably her daughter or her niece and her boyfriend or pathetic husband—and these two use the bedroom but are much quieter then all of her previous guests. But, in the sitting room, I’ve been hearing the same three pop songs pile driving through the floor for months and, as a bonus, I hear someone clearly jumping rope, punctuated with weights being thrown, surely doing damage to property “managed” by Roque and Mark. My only mitigation is when this stops (usually) around the customary 10pm.
I do not want to know another person like this ever again. I hate this shit. Happy new year, bitch.