When I moved in with my girlfriend (who is now my wife), it took some time to get adjusted. Less than a year before, she had been forced out of her campus flat (since she wasn’t studying anymore) and had managed to get an apartment from a special social rental corporation for “working youngsters”. The rule was that you needed to be out of college, be under thirty-five years old, and either have a job or be disabled. Their apartments and maisonettes were located in a relatively decent neighbourhood which mostly consisted of family houses. Despite it being a very small apartment, it seemed quite okay.

So we thought.

First of all, you might know that bicycles are quite a thing here. All bicycles of our “stairs” (about twelve apartments with one or two people living in each of them) had to be cramped into one small shed. For some reason, people also put garbage in the shed that they couldn’t get rid of fast enough. There was even a spare door in that shed — God knows why. Of course, trying to get your bike in or out of it was not that easy. It easily resulted in bicycle dominoes or in actual damage. One of our more responsible neighbours put a new saddle on his bike, only to find it damaged within a few days.

The stairwell, right in front of our door, wasn’t treated much better. Someone (we never found out who) had the habit of putting bags full of garbage in there, suspiciously stuffing them away underneath the stairs. The housing corporation said they couldn’t do anything except send around letters not to do so. Apparently, hanging up a camera, like in the first flat I lived in, was too difficult? Of course, I got fed up and took action in the form of hanging up a note that the stairwells were no garbage dump. Nothing changed, and apparently, I was “passive-aggressive” for doing this.

Third and worst of all, the apartments were not really soundproof. The walls were thin, and everything was built around a small plaza, which was prone to cause echoes if people in the street were loud. Typical for the era in which these small apartment blocks had been built, bedrooms were all on the side of the walkway. So, if someone had friends over and they all went home in the middle of the night with quite a bit of alcohol (or other stuff) in their system, we were bound to be woken up from it. Heck, if anyone was just standing and talking on that walkway, we would already wake up from it.

The upstairs neighbours had a habit of putting on their radio really loudly. We had to complain several times before they finally got the message. During the day, this was bad enough, but a few times, they even did it during the night. They also owned a small dog that wasn’t properly trained and yapped ALL. THE. TIME. (Nowadays, we own a doggy from the same breed ourselves, and it barely barks or yaps, so it’s really a matter of training them.)

The neighbour on the left side. [Neighbour #1], clearly smoked weed every day. We could smell it on our balcony. Over time, he also developed the habit of putting on his radio… really loudly! It was always around 7:00 pm. He also got into verbal fights with the neighbour on his other side, [Neighbour #2], accusing him of setting his car on fire.

The reason for their falling out was that [Neighbour #2] had the habit of coming home from work really late at night, after which he — guess what — put on his radio really loudly!

One night, we woke up from the police knocking on [Neighbour #2]’s door after [Neighbour #1] had called the police about the music. Apparently, the guy was so intoxicated that he didn’t even notice the police ringing his doorbell and knocking on the door for about five minutes. In less than a week, the two neighbours shouted insults and accusations at each other. The same day, they made up on a whim and offered each other a beer as if fights like this were extremely normal. Meanwhile, we were not feeling so safe around these two anymore.

The worst offender, however, was our neighbour on the right side, [Neighbour #3]. Because she always — drum roll — put on her radio really loudly! After some talking to her — which wasn’t easy with our conflict-avoiding nature — she took it down a bit and even warned us when she was having a birthday celebration. But then, something changed. She started hosting parties at her apartment for no apparent reason. The music was extremely loud, and the guests were even louder. They also went onto the walkway, talking even louder. There were nights we barely got any sleep. We never found out what caused the change, but we suspected that it was just to spite us.

And all these stories about loud music only cover the people living directly next to us. The downstairs neighbours rarely caused any noise, so it wasn’t just the poor building or us being sensitive. My girlfriend told me that before I moved in, there was a summer night when she couldn’t sleep because some idiot in one of the other apartment buildings hosted a complete party with a DJ in his garden — which was on the side of the plaza, mind you.

It was all bad enough for me, who had to get up at 6:00 am every weekday to go to my job. My girlfriend, on the other hand, was chronically ill and really needed her rest to get even the simplest thing done.

One night, when we barely could sleep again, my girlfriend broke down and told me how much she hated living there. When she had moved in, she had already told me that she did so because she had no other choice, but now she even admitted that she had wanted to leave as soon as she had moved in. I suggested staying a week at my parent’s house while they were on holiday; we couldn’t afford a real holiday ourselves at the time and she really needed to get away for some time.

We were very happy to move away from that place, about sixteen months after I had moved in with her. We never looked back. And at least the description “working youngsters” made a lot more sense now, since many of these neighbours had proven to be completely immature.

My husband and I are renting an apartment. When we signed contracts, there was an option to pay either online or through check. Online had a 3% convenience fee, which was about $35 a month, but paying with a check didn’t. We opted to pay with checks.

I go to pay for the upcoming month.

Me: “Hi there. I am here to pay next month’s rent.”

The employee at the desk pulls up our account, makes a face, and shoves a paper across the table to me. 

Employee: “I need you to sign this.”

Me: “What’s this?”

Employee: “We’re creating an account for you and moving your payments online so we don’t have to keep going to the bank to deposit your checks.”

I glance through the paper and see that there’s still the convenience fee. 

Me: “Are you willing to waive the convenience fee?”

Employee: “No. You will need to pay that.”

Me: “No, thanks. We’ll continue to pay with checks.”

Employee: “We want to move everyone to online payments for our convenience.”

Me: “It’s more convenient for me to walk down here and save $35 every month. Unless you are able to waive the fee, I’m not signing up for online payments.”

She wasn’t pleased, and we went back and forth a little until I reminded her that in the contract we signed, only we could change how our payments were made; the apartment complex could not make the changes for us. I can’t say they were all that happy to see us when we went in to pay our rent and ask for receipts for the remainder of our time living there. I’m glad we never signed up for online payments because their reviews had many people complaining about extra withdrawals and continuing to be charged for rent after moving out.

I work in a pizza place. We have a new general manager while the old one is on home rest after a motorcycle accident. (He is fine, just a broken leg. It could have been worse, as he said.)

The new general manager proceeds to chase away the old crew because she is a nasty person who gets complaints from crew and customers, but her stores run well, so management just shrugs.

I am one of three remaining old hats who knew a better life under the old general manager. My hours have been cut to roughly fifteen a week. I am making minimum wage — $7.25 at the time.

One night, I go to bed around 11:30 pm. I then wake up at 12:00 midnight to a “Blorp, Glub, Blorp” sound from my bathroom. I get up to look, and dirty water is coming up my toilet, which is beginning to overflow.

I begin to bail it into the bathroom sink. (I HATE getting my hands dirty, so keep in mind that I am bailing dirty water and screaming internally the whole time.)

I have to keep bailing, non-stop, from 12:00 midnight until my landlord wakes up at 5:00 am to hear my voicemail. He calls me back and says he’ll have a plumber over ASAP, but no businesses are open yet.

At 6:00 am, I call my work to tell [General Manager] I won’t be in… but she’s not in yet. I know she was scheduled for 6:00 am because I photograph the schedule.

By 7:00 am, she’s still not in.

By 8:00 am, still not in.

At 9:00 am, no [General Manager].

At 10:00 freaking am, an hour and a half before my shift, [General Manager] is FINALLY in! And this is our conversation.

Me: “I won’t be making it in. My toilet has literally been spewing dirty water since midnight. I have been bailing water since midnight.”

General Manager: “That’s no excuse.”

Me: “No, I’m pretty sure it’s an excuse.”

General Manager: “You need to give us three hours of advance notice to call in.”

Me: “You mean like how I left a message at 6:00 am?”

General Manager: “I never heard it.”

Me: “And how I called back at 7:00 am? And 8:00? And 9:00? And 10:00? AND YOU CAN HEAR MY TOILET IN THE BACKGROUND?!”

General Manager: “Well, I did not hear you at 6:00 am—”

Me: “Because you were four hours late! How is that my problem?!”

Keep in mind, I’m STILL bailing water while I have my cell phone on speaker.

General Manager: “Well, you did not give me three hours of warning. You need to come in, or you will be written up as a no-call, no-show.”

Me: *Sarcastic* “So, you want me to stop bailing water, let my apartment flood, and lose every bit of furniture on the left side of my apartment. For a minimum-wage, part-time job flinging pizza?”

General Manager: “It’s called being a responsible adult—”

Me: “Oh, like you ‘responsibly’ got to work four hours late?”

General Manager: “Either come in or face the consequences.”

Me: “’Kay!” *Hangs up*

Her “consequences” are cutting my hours to zero. I still spend the next two-ish months walking the 2.5 miles to work weekly to see that I have zero hours until she finally pulls me aside.

General Manager: “Stop checking. You are no longer on the schedule.”

Me: “So, I’m fired?”

General Manager: “Yes.”

Me: “There now. Was saying that so hard?”

For the record: a root from the tree out front had grown into the pipe and the two upstairs apartments were flushing things that did not biodegrade. These things got caught in the roots and caused a blockage.

My apartment, being the basement apartment, was the first stop for all the backed-up water.

And no, neither apartment was kind enough to stop using water while I waited for a plumber, even though the landlord called them both to let them know that water was backing up into my apartment. One of them even started their dishwasher. Sigh.

This experience was annoying albeit extremely funny as I’m the most stubborn person you could meet, and this couldn’t have happened to a better candidate!

I get a notification on my phone one day.

Notification: “Google TV has connected to your phone.”

I don’t own a TV — Google or otherwise.

I go looking through my settings and search online to work out that the TV adds all nearby Android devices automatically. I live in a block of flats, so my phone has connected to a neighbour’s TV. I have to remove my device via the TV. It doesn’t work the opposite way around, so I can’t remove my phone from my end. Fun, eh? 

It’s not that much of a problem except that now, not only am I forced into my phone being a remote control for a neighbour’s TV, but it also notifies me every time the channel is switched or the volume is changed. That gets annoying fast. 

I go around to all the doors but am met with the same response: “F*** off, mate,” and a door slammed in my face.

This is where the fun begins.

I access the remote function on my phone and press “Mute TV.” Then, I get a notification.

Notification: “User has unmuted TV.”

I mute it again.

Notification: “User has unmuted TV.”

I mute it yet again.

Notification: “User has unmuted TV.”

This goes on for a little while until I get bored.

The next day, I wake up early to a weird noise. My phone is letting me know that my neighbour is watching a movie. Err, thanks, phone. 

I access the remote on my phone, turn the TV off, and go back to bed.

ALERT! ALERT!

Notification: “User has turned on TV.”

Oh, great. Here we go.

I spend nearly eight hours turning this person’s TV on and off in a game of “Who will get bored first?”

I hear a lot of shouting and smashing coming from upstairs to the right, so it sounds like it’s the neighbor who challenged me to a fight at the door if I knocked on his door again. 

We get up to seven hours and forty minutes, and I get a new notification.

Notification: “Device removed from TV.” 

If only people were more decent to each other and tech companies didn’t design bad software.

I live in an apartment complex. About a year ago, I noticed a letter wedged into the door frame of the apartment across from the complex’s entrance hall. It struck me as odd because only residents or management can get into the building, so it was clearly not a normal letter that would go in the mailbox. About two weeks passed without any sign of the letter being moved, and another letter appeared in the doorframe. Another two weeks after that, a notice was posted on the door itself for everyone to see. The gist of it was that, due to unpaid rent and lack of communication, the apartment management would enter the apartment and begin eviction procedures if they didn’t receive any reply within the next month.

I started to get a bit nervous. Skipping out on rent is a great way to tank your ability to get a new apartment — the rental companies can and do talk to each other about tenants — so the most likely explanation seemed to be that someone had died in the apartment and no one had figured it out yet. There was no smell in the hallway, so I hoped that wasn’t it but couldn’t think of an explanation.

Then, suddenly, the letters just disappeared from the door and nothing new was posted. I figured I’d never learn what happened, but when my partner called up the management company for an unrelated repair request, he asked them what the deal was, not actually expecting an answer. I don’t know if they lied to him or not, but frankly, their answer was so outrageous I have to believe it’s true.

The only person living in that apartment was a cat. Someone had rented out a two-bedroom apartment within a thirty-minute train ride of the city center, probably around 700 USD a month, just for their cat. That’s why the door wasn’t used for over two months; the window was open for the cat to get in and out. 

I’ve still never seen anyone go in or out of that apartment, and this is a nice, new-ish building, so if someone did die, there’s no reason they wouldn’t clean it up and re-let it. I refer to it now as Schrödinger’s apartment; the cat is both living there and not living there until someone opens it up and finds out what the heck is going on.