| (A little note first: Personal Demons is now available in ebook format from Fictionwise! And it's on sale this week.) Ah, summer. The days get longer...long enough that putting the kids to bed at a decent hour becomes a nightly battle with the curtain rod and a bunch of blankets in an attempt to darken the room enough for them to sleep. The air gets warmer...warm enough to make the garbage piled up outside thanks to every-other-week garbage collections stick and attract flies. The air gets warmer (again)...warm enough that, without air conditioning, everyone leaves their doors and windows open, which means that although I myself did not spend the money to buy a home karaoke machine, I still get to experience the riotous fun of listening to my neighbors play with theirs! Oh, yes. In the last couple of days, I've had the thrill of listening to my neighbors' deathless performances of the following: The Time Warp 9 to 5 American Pie We Are the Champions some lame-ass Kylie Minogue song Summer Nights (from Grease) It's Raining Men Oh, yes. It's awesome. Really. The most fun you can have, aside from a fork in the eye or a raging urinary tract infection. (I would mention labor pains, but that actually was fun, as I am no fool and demanded drugs the minute it started to actually hurt. And then very cleverly had a c-section anyway, thus avoiding the really ouchie part. Modern medicine for the win!) But oh, man. I am tired of dreading summer. In Florida we dreaded summer because it was so hot all the time, and because it rained every day at 3:30 pm (honestly), after which the sun came back out and turned the water into steam. Here we dread summer because there is no air conditioning and no screens on the windows, so when eating dinner you have the choice of either battling flies for your food or sweating into it (I choose sweat, as I cannot abide insects.) We dread summer because of the aforementioned rotting garbage stink, which I must admit makes an interesting contrast to the fall-winter-spring stink of manure. But most of all, we dread summer because of our neighbors. You may wonder if I'm not being very bold by saying this in a public forum. I am not afraid, though, as when I mentioned to our neighbor shortly after we moved in that I read a lot she shuddered and said, "Ugh, I hate reading." It's good that she hates reading, though, because it frees up so much of her time for singing karaoke and having loud parties in her backyard every weekend. Every. Weekend. Their yard is filled with playground equipment; they have three kids and most of their family and friends also have kids, so on Saturday and Sunday afternoons it sounds like banshees live next door. Once the banshee shrieks calm down we get the horrible Britpop music, sugary songs sung in unison by interchangeable clumps of boys and girls. And the adults, laughing and talking about football and nationalism or something right under the girls' bedroom window at ten o'clock at night. The thing is, our neighbors aren't bad people. I don't dislike them, I really don't. I just wish they would go inside and shut up. And I like to drink outdoors as much as the next girl, but I try to keep in mind that not everyone wants to hear my conversations, just as my family and I do not find the latest developments on Hollyoaks endlessly fascinating, and so do not necessarily want to hear them recounted and analyzed as if they were national secrets for hours on end. So. These are some of the reasons I hate summer, and dread its miserable grinning face. Now tell me...can you top the karaoke neighbors? C'mon, share your evil neighbor stories! Tell me why you hate summer! |
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OMFG! My heart - and industrial strength earplugs - go out to you. I thought I was the only person in the world with Neighbors from Hell. So let's see if I'm up to the challenge.
I love next to a large Hispanic family that encompasses two homes, one of which is several miles away. They enjoy their music so loud that it rattles my kitchen windows. Not that the music is all that bad but often during a verse the music volume drops and a tirade of Spanish whips across the song. I'm clueless as to what it says but it doesn't fit the music at all.
During the summer they burn their garbage. The toxic aroma of melted plastic lingers in my house. I've called the local fire department several times but it hasn't slowed them down. And then there was the goat slaying.
Last 4th of July they had a huge BBQ fiesta. All of their family was there, yowling and laughing all day long, firing off fireworks from the crack of dawn until late into the 5th. But early in the day they had a live goat over there. I heard it bah-ing in the morning. My kids wanted to go over and see it but I had to restrain them. Then the goat started to moan. It moaned so loud and so long that my cats stood on our deck and just stared. Birds stopped chirping. An eerie silence fell in between the moans. Then I peeked through the bushes and saw the goat bleeding to death on its tether. THey were bleeding it for the huge fire spit they had roaring not far away. When My wife found out she went into hysterics. It was the worst 4th I can ever remember. See, being that we live outside of the city limits they were in their rights to kill the animal as they saw fit. Happy Independence!
So, how about that "love thy neighbor" stuff? Not so easy a task.
Ouch!
Me, I hate firecrackers. Loathe them. Never understood the point of them. And of course, our neighbors across the street have yet to meet a firecracker they didn't like. Or set off. At 10 at night. When my boys are sleeping. KABOOM.
Maybe I should let my kids out to play at 7 in the morning. Loudly. Across the street. On Saturday.
I've only lived in my place a little bit, but you all are making my neighborhood look wonderful.
I definitely can't beat goat slaughter. But as for hating summer, I live in Texas. 'Nuff said.
I empathize...much.
And this may post twice...silly blogger commenter.
My neighbors have 6 out of control children. The kids have no bedtime once summer hits. Truthfully I doubt they have one in winter, but it's too cold to be outside playing games in the cul-de-sac until 2 am then. They jump the fence to come hang out on my deck, and think I'm mean when I chase them off. And the family has four cars and a camper, two drivers. So it looks rather white trash and makes my own parking kinda like playing Tetris with cars.
~J
OMG Pike, that sounds so familiar, having lived in Miami.
When my Princess was born I had to share a room in the maternity ward, and my roommate had a very, very large family. And they ALL came to visit. ALL day. Very loudly. It was hellish, and I couldn't even eavesdrop properly because my Spanish isn't good enough.
Jackie, I totally get you on the fireworks! I hate the things, and the people who lived on the street behind us celebrating the Forty Days of the Fourth every year. The best part was when, after Hurrican Wilma, they decided it would be fun to light fireworks off. While half the nrighborhood had portable gas-powered generators running. I think everyone on our street called the cops.
Geez, J, that's awful! And there's nothing you can do, because if you call the cops and have the kids busted for trespassing it will only make things worse. I'd have a fit if the little bastards climbed over my fence and hung out on my deck. I'd probably try to figure out a way to booby-trap it or something. You should look into that, foreals.
i feel for you, that kind of crap should not be allowed... are there no noise curfews?
the worst part of summer, with windows wide open, all nite: two different bitches [they MUST be] screaming their fake climaxes for the benefit of the neighborhood!?!
after the first moved away, i did not expect another one to move in grrrrrrrrrrr
Lol Laughingwolf! My ex boyfriend and I lived with (by which I mean, shared an apt., not, like LIVED WITH) another couple once for a while, and the female half was SO loud.
I will never forget trying to fall asleep while hearing "ohBillyohBillyohBillyohBillyohBilly..." over and over and over and over. Ugh.
Crapcakes, Stacia, you keep coming up with more hellish stories! How have you managed to stay sane? Or have you...
I'm all for booby traps. Unfortunatley, if they get maimed it's all your fault even though the little dorks weren't supposed to be there. Like Rodney Dangerfield once said, "Now I know why lions eat there young."
I love summer around here. Summer = perverts.
We live in a newer community where the houses are close enough together that we can smell each other's farts. Well, we don't have air conditioning, either (being the PNW, and all), so the windows are open all summer long (avec screens, s'il vous plait). Right outside our second floor loft area are two big windows that supply the majority of the breeze through that area. And right beneath it? Our neighbors hot tub.
Now, I'm not one to gossip (heheh) but those people are clearly alcholics and none to modest. Many a night, Caroline and I have come home to find wild parties going on (it's not normal for 30-year olds to still have beer bongs). The first thing we do? Turn off the lights and shimmy across the floor commando style to listen to the madness.
Overheard...
"I'm naaaaaaakkkkkeeeeeedddd" That one from the wife (we think).
The tell-tale sounds of spanking, followed not by cries of pain, but moans of pleasure (male).
General clucking at high pitched volumes (male and female).
One time, Caroline counted twelve in that four man jobby. It was like a time warp back to the 70's. They probably end their nights with a key party.
My last apartment (hopefully ever) had been a larger apartment before the building owners stuck a piece of plywood over a doorway and separated it. 1/2 inch plywood, tops. And "plywood" implies something much stronger and soundproof than whatever that stuff was.
Worst couple was the screaming fighters. All day, all night. Or their baby cried. I'm not sure how they ended up with the baby when all they did was scream.
The last couple...I'm certain how they ended up with a baby. Everyone in our building (four other apartments) could hear the female half. At least twice a day. It started to give me an inferiority complex after a while.
Hi from Florida! I was kind of dreading Angelic Daughter's middle school years specifically because they're released at... 3:30! Fortunately, it hasn't rained in the last two years. Also unfortunately, it hasn't rained in the last two years.
I also despise the noise of fireworks. I also don't appreciate them being shot off right next to the woods right next to which my house is situated while there is a DROUGHT.
Bugs. All of them. In swarms. (Just had cockroaches in the car---whee!) And if you have not experienced the twice-yearly joy of lovebugs, you have not lived.
The extra $100 on the electric bill for the duration of summer, because when it's 100 degrees with 90 percent humidity, the A/C is ON rather than poaching in our own sweat.
And the minor detail that in Florida, summer lasts 8 months out of the year also kind of sucks.
I hate summer because I live in an unairconditioned home in Australia, aka a "sunburnt country" (as a famous Scottish poet called it). Often the temperature reaches 40C. I remember it reaching 44C (111.2F, according to http://www.albireo.ch/temperatureconverter/).
Have a lovely day! :-)
Everyones stories were awesome, even though the goat slaughter made me tear up a bit. Now my next door neighbor is a professional draq queen.( hand to heart I swear...) Many nights after midnight I have awoken to him/her practicing a new routine that
is either Cher,Brittany or Janet. One night at about 3AM he/she was singing "like a virgin"(yeah right) at the top his/her lungs. I went next door to very nicely tell him to shut the %&&%%^$$**^*^$# up! He answered the door in a thong fishnets and 6 inch stripper heels.
Nothing else..swear to god. I starting laughing so hard I couldn't ask him anything...I left laughing so hard I thought I was going to loose a lung. He still sings late at night, but if he hears me alughing he will stop immeaditly.
I live in a gorgeous place, less than a mile from the beach, but it just happens to be on the wrong side of town...pretty much paradise right in the middle of the ghetto. I had a nut job lady from two streets over hopping my fence, psyched out on some odd drug trying to climb in my open (screened) bedroom window to hide from the cops (my husband cornered her with the broom until the cops got there)... another nut with a gun hiding in my back yard from a swat team (they later had to spray him off the neighbor's roof with a fire hose) and dumbass drunk people setting off fireworks and shooting their guns all summer long.
on the other hand....I love summer because my kids sleep in and I don't have to get up to take them to school!
I am so sorry for the karoke machine...I just really don't understand the appeal.
I hate summer...and yes, I know this odd...because I hate swamp coolers and air conditioning. It just seems to be artificial air to me and it drives me crazy. Keep in mind that my husband and sons find it to be the most enjoyable thing since sliced bread...they like our house to be freezing.
I, also, hate summer because all the kids in the neighborhood apparently do not have bedtimes and can be out until all hours of the night. Might I add that they think the street is their personal playground and that I should be responsible for finding an alternative route to my driveway, because why should they have to move their skateboard ramp out of the middle of the street.
Oh the joys of summer!
Not sure if I can quite top it. I did live next door to a group of German girls at university who insisted on playing My Heart Will Go On on repeat at full volume all the time. Like, ALL the time.
And our current neighbours like to cook and do DIY pretty late at night, but since my bedroom is on the opposite side of the house to them, I never hear it. My housemate bears the brunt. Which is good.
Haha. My neighbours are lovely considerate people. You couldn't wish for better people to live next door. :-D
Summer in England though...*shudder* As soon as the Sun comes out the blokes seem to think it's perfectly acceptable to walk around in shorts and sandles/trainers, beer bellies proudly on display and pasty bodies blinding their fellow man. (Until, of course, they burn. In which case it's akin to having a whole street load of Zoiburg's walking around. [the eating habits are very similar too.]) Ah, the joys of an English summer...
;-)
i'm not anti enthusiastic sex, but there must a limit to the sound effects... lol
This seems piddly compared to all the goat killing, hot-tub debauchery, and other nefarious, call-the-police acts but...I used to be married to a military man. Our housing situation had us upstairs over a family that fought non-stop and used very colorful language. On a few occassions we got up in the morning to find their daughter sleeping in a la-z-boy placed on the front lawn. ??? Their son liked to throw balls at the side of the house--the upper side of the house--while my kids were napping, of course. The neighbors to our side had pit bulls they kept on our shared but partition-separated patio. Couldn't go out there or open to the screen for a breeze because it reeked of dog excrement and the snarls from the otherside promised that if they could break through they WOULD eat you. They left, eventually (YAY), and another family moved in. They celebrated with a party and a karaoke machine. At 3 am, for the hundredth time, we listened to an Asian-accented rendition of Elvis' "My Way". Yeah. It was different....
Wait, we have English summers?
I must have blinked and missed them. I could have sworn spring just sort of merged with autumn these last few years.
All I remember is rain and that one day we had snow, in the middle of friggin July!!!
OMG all this is totally cracking me up. Sorry cant help it. Being in nice humide Houston TX (balmy 94 today with almost 80% humidity lol) if I didnt have a/c I would have to shoot myself lol.
Well if I had kids in my yard (when I had a yard) people learned really quickly that my 21 lbs terror (yes terror) mix didn't take too kindly to visits and would try to eat them LOL. She might be 12 1/2 yrs old but she still will take on anyone and win LOL.
Right now my neighbors aren't too bad. But when I lived in another apt 10 yrs ago the complex was going thru this relief thing for people from Somalia. Well these people didnt know much about living in our society. One night around 2 am we woke up to a flood in the bathroom coming from upstairs. They had decided to removed the toilet (over there they do their business in a hole in the floor eww). Well they busted a pipe and we had very own indoor pool sigh.
Another time the manager happened to be walking by and peaked in the door (god forbid they closed the door) and saw they puttin newspapers etc in the oven and trying to light it up. Thank god that section of the complex was electric and not gas or we would have all blown up. And they didnt believe in cleaning or taking baths, OMG it smelled to high heaven. Even the roaches were moving out.
My street and neighbours aren't so bad...the creepy guy across the alley stopped trying to chat with me before I out and out told him I don't want to talk to him. (I'm really not the neighbourly sort)
My big issue here: fucking mosquitoes. God damn buggers are the size of hummingbirds, and the swarm covers the entire city from the end of June to the end of September. The City sprays malathion over every patch of grass 1 sq ft or larger to deal with them. I'm on the no-spray list because I actually want to eat what's in my garden, but it means that the expanse of lawn I've been passivly trying to kill (I cut it super short and don't water it) is full of the little fuckers.
Next year I'm going to pave my yard.
I just realized I have no problem with my neighbors. So does that mean that I am the bad neighbor?
Hmmm.
Live in Dallas. Hot. Have A/C. I'm happy.
Oh, these stories are the awesome! Thanks so much guys!
I love summer. It is warm, sunny. You can bath, swim, read as much as you want. Not to mention *write*.
Unfortunately, there is other things like mosquitos, gnats, bees.... Now, you can get rid of the bees, maybe. But the mosquitos and the gnats? Nope. So, you just accept them...
And, so far we don't have noisy neighbors. No stinking garbage, since the county have realised that it is best to pick it up once a week..
But, hey, I like summer :D
Oh, and evil neighbours? I forgot to mention the the house behind me is a half way house for the criminally insane. :-/
Perfectly good neighbours... so long as we don't look at their windows (there's always somebody watching back. Creepy.)and when the armed police don't have to visit. Seriously. No joke.
We have the Spastic Society and an old folks home in spiting distance too. And we used to have a special needs primary school too, but they closed it down and demolished it. Not exactly party animals, I'm afraid and the help would probably object to animal slaughter in the back garden.
But as I said, the actual next door neighbours are lovely. :-D