The Neighbor Debacle.

Goodness. The events of the last few hours have been insane in these parts. I come home and all the action happens!

Matt and I live in a good-sized apartment complex. All of the buildings are two story and connected together. There are various doors that open into "buildings" of two, four, or six apartments. Our little chunk of the complex is near the end. If you go into the door to enter our building, there are two apartments on the main floor and two apartments upstairs. We live in one of the upper apartments. The only shared walls we have with our neighbors is a small sliver of the kitchen with our fellow upstairs neighbors, and the wall in our second bedroom and bathroom with the townhome attached on the other side. It is a fairly quiet building. The couple across the hall live with her father (I would say they are in their late 30s). The person below them is another older man and he lives alone. Our old neighbors who lived below us were another couple (again, mid to late 30s) and they were gone a lot. I think they both went on business trips. But they were young, friendly, and would have people over every once in awhile.

It was a peaceful place, this apartment. Well, until this afternoon.

Only an hour after I got back this afternoon, a GINORMOUS moving truck pulled up as a new family began moving in downstairs. Matt left for work right as they showed up, so I've been dealing with the chaos by myself.

I understand that moving in is a noisy affair. All the lugging and contorting of furniture is a pain. And I can imagine that it is a lot worse when you have kids.

But seriously, COME ON.

There were two kids RUNNING up and down the stairs non-stop for a period of time. When they reached the top of the stairs, they would bang on the wall (oh, which is our apartment, since our door is literally at the top of the staircase). Then I could hear their little feet pounding back down. Then there were the hands slapping on the wall as they came up the stairs, which is the wall of our living room.

I dealt with it.

But then I am trying to read in the living room, and I keep hearing kicking and screaming from out on our landing. I peeked out our little peephole to see a very little kid sitting right in front of my door with a couple of toys. I know he didn't belong to the people across the hole, so I popped the door open to say hello.

He was playing quietly, so I said hi and shook his hand. Seriously, the kid looked to be 3 or 4 at most. I asked him his name, but he shook his head at me and kept playing. I went downstairs to see if they were, you know, LOOKING for him, but the door to the apartment below ours (where they were moving in) was closed shut. I knocked and when they answered, I told them their little boy was upstairs by himself, at the top of a very tall and scary staircase, and on a narrow balcony. She just nodded at me and shut the door.

I went back upstairs, told the kid to be careful, and went back into my apartment.

Maybe ten minutes later, the little peaceful child turned into a little hellion. He was screaming and yelling bloody murder, kicking our front door, and throwing his toys all over the landing, staircase, and downstairs into the entryway. I took it for a few minutes before opening my door and asking him to calm down. He just screamed at me, so I asked him to go back downstairs to his mom and dad. Nothing but screams.

So back down I went and knocked on the door. They opened it again and I complained about their kid kicking my door, SCREAMING, and such. All they did was nod and wave their hand at me before shutting the door. I walked back to the staircase, looking up at the little hellion screaming, then went back and pounded on their door again. It was the guy this time, and while he looked tired, he was not the one dealing with a screaming child. So I told him, you either come remove your child or I will call the cops

He just stared at me, so I said that if he could not control his child in HIS OWN APARTMENT, I would call the police and have them take care of it. He came with me and I gestured upstairs (as if he needed pointing because the kid was still SCREAMING and kicking). He picked his kid up and took him into their apartment. Finally.

THEN, just minutes later, what do I hear but little feet running up and down the stairs again, their little fists pounding against my wall and slapping our front door?

I went back down after telling the two kids to be quiet and told both parents that I was lodging a complaint with the complex. Again, they were in their apartment with their door shut, leaving the kids completely unattended in an apartment building. Simply ridiculous.

Anyway, I just called the main office and left a heated message for the manager of the complex. I am a very nice person and it takes A LOT to get me riled up and mad. We had a lot of issues at our old complex and have been very happy here. I am not going to put up with this kind of crap.

I'll let you know how the saga goes when I hear back from the complex tomorrow. For now, our new neighbors are quiet downstairs and there is no more screaming in the entryway.

Jeesh.