From the vault....

You already know what's happening in Casa Didgeridoo, so I won't bore you with another mention of Foster the Cat. Here's an entry from eight years ago, in the first GoKittenGo blog (still there, but locked so I can whip out surprises). I was living in a really cute apartment over what can only be described as a ... *cluster*. There. I'm being nice. They never ran their a/c, and heat rises. The issue finally wore my a/c unit out, and I skip-to-my-lou'd right out of there once the lease was up. Let's go back into the moment, shall we?



Hot

15 June 2002 | 4:50 pm

First, allow me to say that I feel people have a right to live as they see fit in their own homes. Now, let me say that I feel my downstairs neighbors are severely limiting my ability to do so.

Given: They have a right to not run their air conditioner. However, It’s 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside, and the heat from their place is rising into mine. This is a sad norm, last summer my electric bills were upwards of $200.00 per month because my air conditioner runs non damn stop. With the thermostat set to sixty, it’s steadily at least eighty degrees in my place. Those bastards are on the last nerve I no longer have, and I’ve no idea how to remedy the problem.

It’s so frustrating, standing on the furniture to check the vents only to find that cold air is indeed blowing, and that a layer of cool air exists well over my head. (It’s really odd! Perhaps I should put the dresser on the bed, and put a chair on top of that and just stay until October?) It blows so hard that it spins the ceiling fan in the sun room, which is located just under one of the vents. The problem isn’t my air conditioning unit. It’s the Jerry Springer episode I’m doomed to live above. (Please forgive me, the heat has rendered me incapable of positive thoughts!)

The property managers cannot make them run the a/c, can they? I’m considering root work; this is the deep South, and practitioners can be found. (Great God, I’m going delirious.) What about if I festoon my porch with chicken bones, and add a decorative sickle? I can tell them to address me only as Mistress Doomwench, and scare them into turning the fucking thing on.

I’ve turned off the air conditioning, as it does no good anyway. I am wearing a tank top for the first time in my natural life. (It was a Christmas gift a few years ago. I didn’t actually purchase it, darlings.) Strategically positioned in front of a fan, I am plotting their downfall and chucking the occasional heavy object floorward. (Oh, boxes of books, boxes of shoes, a headboard or two, those ought to do the trick) Shake ‘em up, and hopefully move ‘em the hell out at month’s end.

Granted, they don’t complain when I have a glass of champagne or ten and listen to the embarrassing variety of tunes I’m prone to listen to while intoxicated at 1.00am (my last spree was to Information Society and the Sugarcubes). And they’ve yet to complain about all the noise that results from me jumping off my bed repeatedly in fits of rage over the oven my apartment becomes. I don’t think they notice. To be honest, they seem positively oblivious to everything.

They’ll sit outside and stare at the parking lot for hours on end. Sometimes they have beer. Other times they grill, and please don’t get me started on how close that gas grill sits to the wooden apartment building. Sometimes they block the stairs completely and good naturedly fail to even so much as offer to move as I try to leave. But the real issue is the air conditioning, or lack thereof. Santa Claus will, please, bring them a Ryder truck and haul them the hell away.

Don’t you damn dare tell me this builds character.


Not one whit of that is an exaggeration - I really jumped off the bed and threw boxes, and they really did just *stare* out into the parking lot all the time. I especially like the part about the tank top, which I've since released my fear of. But this was during my posh-retro-Jackie-O phase, during which things like that simply were not done.

I don't know what became of those people, but I'd be willing to wager they sweated out their next upstairs neighbors, too. I never knew what to make of the situation. Sometimes an assortment of men would show up at odd hours demanding to see the woman who lived there. Sometimes her mother would show up demanding to know about the men. Although a sauna, it could prove entertaining on Friday nights.