HOW DO YOU PLEAD?

Last week I went into ‘Home Depot’ to get some wooden dowels for my windows and sliding glass door.
Yes. Dowels.
Since we’ve had a bit of a shift in the upstairs neighbors I felt some minor deterrents might be in order.
***Stay tuned. This trip to ‘Home Depot’ is my very own “Missed Connection Monday” post.
Remember when I was doing my happy dance about the upstairs neighbors moving out?
– Per the managers own mouth. Liar. –
Only the girl and the forever crying baby moved out.
Baby daddy, a.k.a., “concrete feet” stayed behind.
Of course, he did. – And he’s not alone.
“Concrete feet” decided to move 2 or 8 of his closest buddies in. Which, as far as I can tell consists of at least two more adult males and a group of teenage boys who like to hang around in the parking lot leaning on cars or loitering around the building blocking the sidewalk and stairwell.
As you can imagine. With all of this male testosterone swirling about it’s even louder! Forget about the elephants running up and down the stairs. That’s nothing compared to the never-ending buzzing coming from upstairs now.  I swear they’ve replaced the forever crying baby with power tools! Not even kidding. Of course, my creepy crime show mentality immediately goes to, “they must be hacking up bodies up there!”
With these teenage boys – liars, might I add – and at least one of those adult males, suddenly a bike rack has appeared outside of my front door! Which would be super cool except I don’t own a bike but apparently ALLLLLLLLLL of them do!
Side Note:  “Lying teenage boys”
ME – Hey guys, would you please pick up the garbage you left all over up there on the sidewalk?
THEM – (Looking me straight in the eyes) That’s not ours.
ME – Really? All of those candy wrappers and drink lids laying around by those bikes, that’s not from you guys?
THEM – Nope.
ME – Those aren’t your bikes?
THEM – Nope.
ME – Perfect. Listen to me very carefully, you’re going to be hearing these words a lot.
“How do you plead?”
They all just looked at me. I walked over to the office to issue my complaint. They all scattered. I haven’t seen them since. I also haven’t seen any garbage around my front door and now instead of a full bike rack there are only two bikes tucked nicely under the stairwell.
Mission accomplished.
Here’s the thing. It’s not that I’m a nosey neighbor. I could give two shits what anyone else is doing in my building as long as what they’re doing doesn’t effect me. I keep an eye on things because it’s the smart thing to do. And it gives me fodder for my blog. There’s a single mom that lives across the back fence and she has an old, creepy next door neighbor that is constantly trying to get her to go into his apartment. I take note of that. If anything ever happens to her. I’ll tell the cops to check him out first.
The building next to us throws loud ass parties every weekend and their back patio area looks like a dumpster of beer cans and pizza boxes by Sunday morning. Not my deal. They keep it over there and I’m fine with that. The noise upstairs in my own building I can deal with and vent here about. The garbage and broken down bikes at my front door? Nope. Not gonna’ deal with that. It wasn’t like that when I moved in. I won’t tolerate it now. And my biggest issue with the upstairs situation? We all had to pass a background check to move in here. No felons allowed. Who knows what those new guys are upstairs. Besides non-English speaking.
I know none of us can be 110% certain about those around us. Years ago ‘Psychology Today’ magazine wrote an article stating that of every 10 cars that pass you on the road, at least one of them has someone in it that is plotting a murder. That’s scary. I imagine it’s the same if you’ve got more than 10 people around you and I’m guessing that number is even higher in 2016. Call me a whimp, call me paranoid but I take precautions. I like to think of it as giving the criminals out there a bit of a warning…  For the moment that warning is wooden dowels..