We've lived on this little college infested street for nearly two years and I think, like everywhere else I've lived, that I've learned a few lessons. I've lived in an apartment, a town house, and a rent house aside from the apartment we live in now. I'm not even counting the dorms and what torment that brought on. My first semester of college Lemert (the worst dorm on earth) had a centipede infestation. Glorious!
Read More
This particular month and a half in college land has really got me thinking about the next place we will live. I may, or may not spend time in red shoes tapping my heels together daily in hopes of putting our Monroe house somewhere else.
Apartment living as a single girl is totally different than as a married chick. Granted my personality hasn't changed at all, I did bang a groom on our ceiling one when the football players who lived upstairs were doing something that sounded a lot like flag football in their living room. The worst I had in my last college infested apartment experience is that in 1 year, from October to October, my car was hit and run no less than 5 times. You think I'm kidding, I know. Seriously, my front bumper was hit 5 stinking time.
Lessoned learned: College kids can't drive.
Then there was the time when my roommate moved out and the apartment manager had a opening for a one bedroom loft townhouse closer to campus. There were mostly married couples there so it was extremely peaceful. My biggest worry was that Ellie would get out and run towards the road, we didn't have a real gate...it just looked like one. It was a very peaceful four years, except for that time it was pouring rain and I forgot to lock my car. I managed to leave my entire backpack, brand new engraved iPod, and my purse in the car that night. When I got up I was convinced my boyfriend had surprised me by cleaning my car. It wasn't until I got to campus that I realized my backpack and purse were missing that I knew someone had robbed me blind. They even took the air fresheners out of my air vents. Cleanest my car had ever been.
Lesson learned: People are constantly waiting to see if the people living in the "nice" townhouses will make a profitable mistake.
I still think some kid is running around with a purple Aldo bag and a pink backpack.
Then I got married and we found a house to rent in a nice quiet neighborhood. We were close to campus, close to work, and the setup was ideal for small dog owners. I could have lived there forever, with a few updates and renovations. The carpet and wallpaper was scary. We were the youngest people in this neighborhood and everyone in several houses in any direction were retired. For the first time ever, we were the problem. It only took two times from ole Bob next door having a fit about the girls to get bark collars and begin training for barking. Funny thing is that the neighbor to the right of us hated the dogs, the one on the left loved them. Oh retired neighbors, how I love you.
Then Jeremy moved and I was left living with two of his guy friends until I graduated and moved to Thibodaux. Not ideal, let me tell you. We all got on each other's nerves like nothing else. Ladies, if you ever you are taking your husband for granted, just go live with some single guys for a hot minute. I'm not a roommate person at all. It was painful for all parties involved (haha).
Lesson learned: bark collars are needed, and even the best living arrangements can go south.
Then we moved to south Louisiana. I didn't look around for an apartment much after we were told we wouldn't have to pay a dog fee here. I jumped on like I had found the end of the rainbow, most apartments I had talked to wanted upwards of $1000 for pet fees since we had two pups.
Then our neighbors, whom I loved more than any other neighbor I've had, made the biggest apartment dwelling mistake one can make. They set us on fire. We were literally minutes from losing everything we had when the firemen showed up. Our attic took a huge beating and we didn't have electricity for quite some time in our bedroom and the hallway. We still don't have electricity in the hallway. Good thing though it that the dogs survived the terrible smoke and we escaped with easy to handle smoke damage. It took very little effort to clean the smell out. We had dodged a close one.
That incident turned me into what our friends on this street joking refer to as "the fire marshall." I can't stand the sight of fire pits, and I don't mind telling off every 20 something on our street because of it. Our new neighbors actually got one and set it aflame in the same spot the one was the caught us on fire. I marched outside in my polka dot rain boots and demanded they put it out. At first they disagreed, but once I assured them life would be much easier if they never lit it again...and gave a full run down of the damage while pointing out all the new wood and siding...they ended up complying while nodding and repeatedly saying "yes mam."
It doesn't take much for the teacher voice to crawl back out.
Now many of you are aware that it is Mardi Gras, as we speak. This means two things are happening on our little street.
1) There has been a mass exodous to New Orleans for the weekend.
And...
2) Those who stayed are less than sober.
Which leads me to that picture above...some drunk kid took out the mail boxes. I was cracking up with I saw it and ran in to grab the camera. This just further proves my point to Jeremy that we need to move and get a house to rent. While I was sitting outside on the pavement trying to get a good shot I found a possible culprit. The guy driving that black truck seemed a little taken back that I was photographing the mailbox conundrum. He started to back out, then stopped, came forward, then backed out super quick and high tailed it off the street. Considering how I police the ridiculously immature kids that live around us, and under the same land lord, he probably thought I was going to rat them out.
But I'm not, while I think they are incredibly stupid, I'm just going to sit outside next to my slowly dying rosemary bush (that's another story) and wait on the fun to unravel. Nothing makes our little ( literally) land lord more irritated than property damage.
There are two lessons to learn from this:
1) Don't drink and park, I'd hate to see how they were driving at that point.
2) No one seems to be getting their deposit back this year...except the few of us who havent driven into anything or burned it down.
How do you like where you live?
