Saw Mike

Arriving home from mini-mart after seeing Doug, my plan was to go inside front gate, check mail, go back outside and enter my apartment via the side gate, even though John was home. Silly, is it not, to refrain from entering and exiting my apartment by my front door ~ even to check the mail ~ due to Chris's door always being open.

That started bothering me after John moved into the building. Prior to that, I had noticed Chris would step outside his apartment, staring as I went to check mail. I assumed he was expecting company, looking to see if they arrived at front gate. Then one day, as I walked to my apartment, John stood at his door, saying, "Hi friend," over and over again. I was looking at the mail as I walked back to my apartment. I assumed John was yelling over to Chris, who had also stepped outside his apartment.

I stopped at my door, turned to look at John asking if he was speaking to me, said, I thought he was speaking to Chris. Thinking upon it, the light bulb went off in my head. Due to John's aggression, I stopped checking my mail when he was home, and soon stopped checking it when Chris' door was open. Days will go by when I have not checked my mailbox. Some nights I would go check it at 11PM or midnight.

The front gate was open. Mike was opening his mailbox. He said the usual type of things he will say when he sees me ~ "Get back in your cage."  ~ "Who are you?" ~  "You don't live here." ~  type of banter. I decided to enter my apartment by the front door, even though I had not unlocked the screen door  ~ key gives me trouble, so only lock the deadbolt on inside door, when I still used the front gate on a regular basis.

As Mike and I headed to our apartments I pointed to the apartment diagonally across from me, asking if she still lived there. Nope. Then I pointed to apartment next door to me and asked if he still lived there. Nope. Mike wondered "Where have you been?" That I did not know two neighbors moved out. I do not think the man who lived next door to me was here very long. He works, Mike told me when the guy moved there, for Beasley's, owner of the building.

First few days, there was a lot of noise from that guy who I saw once when he was entering his apartment with his lady friend. Would hear his TV late at night, early morning, not loud, LOUD, just loud enough to keep me from falling to sleep. I thought he might spend a lot of nights at his lady's home; most often any noise coming from there was on Sundays. As mentioned, often well past 11PM. Heard voices once in a while.

I noticed that I had not heard the constantly crying baby for a while. Nor heard that lady's voice, TV or stereo. A relief, although I John and Chris' noise have been the worst and most troublesome to me. Had another bad weekend, thank you, John. Chris' cough, cough, coughing, is also keeping me awake nights. I discovered that when John is running his bath water full blast for hours, he is also running his kitchen sink water full blast.

I am guessing he must be flushing his drains. I mean what other reason could a body have to run water for two or more hours? Non-stop. I hope when I happen to see John, that I ask him to please flush his drains at a more reasonable hour of the day. I hate having fits at midnight ~ not just his water, Chris' coughing, their loud conversations outside my door, way past 10PM, but also his darn TV, radio or stereo.Thump, thump, thump. All night long. And that is when he keeps the volume turned down.

Guess when he has company, he forgets that the manager already spoke to him about volume levels. Especially annoying when I am tired and long to go to sleep at night.