Unlike most posts, this isn't about our apartment, but instead the duplexes across the street. Last night was a 3 round doosy of a fight. All the 4 letter words were dragged out. The situation: Across the street are duplexes. Two unit "houses", with two garages. One garage for each unit. All of these garages are converted into illegal apartments. No way would the city code office...
One thing that living in an “affordable” apartment complex is that you live among people who are near the poverty line. No desperate poor, but people who are close. There are many signs, but one sure sign is the ubiquitous “Swisher Sweets” wrappers. Not being a smoker, I wasn’t very aware of the small flavored cigarillos that are sold at convenience stores. Small...
We are lucky to have found an apartment complex that welcomes our greyhounds. Especially after a brief survey of the houses (that rent for more than $1200 a month more) are mostly no pets, or cats only, this is quite a find. However, I wish that all the dog owners here would just clean up after their dogs. Part of the problem I believe is that until recently, they had a 25# limit on dogs. That...
More on the trials and tribulations of living in an apartment, this time, the house across the street has stepped up their game beyond the 4 nights a week of parties. Now they are doing auto repair. Yep, auto repair. Changing oil, replacing starters, installing LOUD stereo systems, and fart cans on cheap Japanese econoboxes. It is a joy, especially since they start at about 6 PM. Nothing like...
Friday night is party night, right? (Well, if you are the asshats in the duplex across the street, Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday are party nights, but I digress …) Ah yes, the outdoor activities are up. Kids are playing Soccer out front of our door. Cool, except they keep kicking it into the wall and our door. Fortunately there are no windows to break within reach. The teenagers are...
There are many bad things about living in a less than great neighborhood. But also some really good things. This is a mixed bag post. First, the bad Sandals Early this week, while walking my dogs, I stepped in some dog feces. One of the hazards regardless of how nice the neighborhood is, no matter how cultured (or not) the residents are, people walking their dogs are very negligent in picking up...
When we first moved back to the Santa Clara area, we were put up at a newish apartment complex in Sunnyvale. When that month of free rent expired, we moved into an affordable apartment in South San Jose. This will compare and contrast these two experiences. Sunnyvale: Avalon Apartments The Avalon Apartments were built in the late 1990’s or early 2000’s. They are modern, well appointed...
Yesterday morning, I took the recycling out, and upon putting it in the recycling bin, I noticed that a whole shopping cart was in the dumpster. I wanted to come back for a picture, to point out the insanity, but a scavenger was working it. So today I carried my camera out to grab a picture. I shouldn’t have bothered. The shopping cart was stripped of all metal. The frame, the stiffening...
With the recent passing of the legendary James Garner I have once again tossed the hit TV series “The Rockford Files” onto my Netflix streaming list. I had gone through the series a few years ago, reminiscing about my childhood, but this time it was to honor the memory of James. It is astounding how well the stories hold up to time. Written and filmed in the mid 1970’s, the...
This Tuesday life changed around our apartment. The big high school started the fall term, and that brought a new level of zaniness. I have posted in the past about the “kid droppers” and the insane risks they take with their precious cargo, but this deserves its own post. First sign was that I was leaving a few minutes later than usual on Tuesday. Normally not a bigger deal, just a...