The People Who Live In My Apartment Building

When I heard that song, I knew I wanted to have the chance to use it. Now seems like as good a time as any. Thankfully, most of the people who live in my apartment building aren’t as weird as the specimens in the song…although we’ve had a few prizes. But lately, I keep running into weirdos. Am I just out of practice with dealing with people because I work from home so much? Or are people getting weirder. Here are some examples.

One day, Steve went to the garbage chute and found the lever that you use to open the chute was gone. The main garbage room’s knob was still there, but the chute handle had vanished. Who steals a doorknob? Even if it fell off, wouldn’t you bring it to the office or leave it in the garbage room so someone from maintenance might be able to put it back on? Nobody reported it but us, and the handle was nowhere to be found, so that wasn’t what was done. What are you going to do with a door handle built for a specific purpose?

That’s not all. While we waited for the building to fix the chute, we would go check every day to see if the knob was back on. A few days in, we found that the main garbage room door was locked. Why? Because people had been leaving their bags of garbage on the floor of the garbage room, hoping the garbage fairy would carry them away to their proper destination, I guess.

For a few months now, I’ve been trying to do some exercise by going all the way down the stairs and then climbing back up. For a while, I was nervous I would see people in there, and they would wonder what the heck I was doing. I rarely find anyone in there, but I always find evidence of the beehive of activity that is the stairwell.

• There are cardboard boxes at the top of random sets of stairs.
• At the tops of other ones, there are random piles of dirt.
• I have occasionally put my hand in something wet on the stair rail. The stairs aren’t open to the elements. Eeewwww!
• it smells like cigarette smoke at random places along the way.
• Once, I kicked what felt like a chair cushion that was laying at the bottom of the stairs.

People, what are you doing in there? I hope I don’t find out one of these nights.

One day, I went down to check the mail. I was moving a little too slow for another guy’s liking, and he decided he was going to help me…by grabbing my arm and pushing me along. I didn’t even tell him I was lost. At least he asked where I was going, but I was doing just fine. It wasn’t fine enough for him, apparently. Then when I was leaving, I was getting ready to turn to leave the room, and he started loudly telling me “Turn!” Dude, how do you suppose I get around all the rest of the times I check the mail?

And the laundry room is full of strangeoids. The machines keep making error beeps after people set all their settings and press start, but nobody seems to know if, when that happens, it also steals a load’s worth of money. How do you not notice? Laundry is expensive! Another time, I put the card in the slot of the machine and it did nothing. So I asked someone what was on the screen, and he said “You have to press start.” He didn’t look. He just yelled that across the room. I might have understood if he’d never worked the machines in here. The way they work is they beep and show you your balance, at which point you set all your settings, and only then can you press start. but he was filling another dryer and said he always avoided the one I was trying to use. So he was familiar with these. Um, what are you talking about? And can you actually look at the screen before saying something completely useless? I think I know I have to press start…just as soon as I set all the other stuff.

Another lady was over at her daughter’s place so she could feed her cat and decided to do her laundry for her. But she didn’t notice what was in her daughter’s laundry, so wasn’t sure if things had gone missing. She also had no intention of coming back to check if those missing items had been brought back. I’m sure her daughter really appreciated the help. She probably appreciated it about as much as I appreciated her picking up items that I had dropped and putting them in the cart without telling me. I would have been thankful if she had either told me I had dropped them or told me that she had put them in the cart. But silently moving my stuff when I can’t see you doing it is NOT COOL! And then she wonders why I’m looking worried when a bunch of my stuff has gone missing. “Oh they fell on the floor so I threw them in your cart,” she says like that’s totally expected. She was perfectly fluent in the English language. Please, lady. For the love of Pete, speak!

Those are the examples I can think of right off the top of my head. I’m sure I’ll think of more. I guess I shouldn’t complain. It could be much much worse. You hear me, Universe? I already know it could be worse. You don’t have to show me!