Who else has lived in an apartment below a sumo wrestler body-slamming 10-lb bags of cement every night? It can't just be me...
Disclaimer: I am not a professional mental health consultant, life coach, or accredited expert on the topics I discuss. This podcast and channel are based on my thoughts and opinions only.
For episode feedback or topic requests, please email routinedramapod@gmail.com or message me from the show's Instagram page @routinedramapod.
You can also watch every episode on YouTube.
Learn more about me and get all episode transcripts at routinedrama.com.
Follow Routine Drama on social media:
Instagram
Threads
X
Facebook
Please rate, review, and subscribe to make a difference in an independent creator's day!
Who else has lived in an apartment below a sumo wrestler body-slamming 10-lb bags of cement every night? It can't just be me...
Disclaimer: I am not a professional mental health consultant, life coach, or accredited expert on the topics I discuss. This podcast and channel are based on my thoughts and opinions only.
For episode feedback or topic requests, please email routinedramapod@gmail.com or message me from the show's Instagram page @routinedramapod.
You can also watch every episode on YouTube.
Learn more about me and get all episode transcripts at routinedrama.com.
Follow Routine Drama on social media:
Instagram
Threads
X
Facebook
Please rate, review, and subscribe to make a difference in an independent creator's day!
[00:00:00] Intro music
Kayla: Hello, and welcome to another episode of Routine Drama. Once again, I am Kayla. And I can say our mission from episode one was successful. I got the show live so that's a win. And if you do want to review of any [00:00:30] of the challenges that come with trying to find a name for a podcast and actually making sure that it's unique and original and claiming that, go back and watch episode one.
Kayla: For today's episode topic, I wanted to branch out to something that is a little bit more general that I think a lot of people can relate to and that I certainly can relate to and it is apartment living.
So there are certain dramas and challenges and [00:01:00] annoyances that come with living the apartment life. But there also a lot of things that I really like about it. So I kind of wanted to get into both of those today and then maybe share some tips with you guys for ways to enjoy living in apartments more.
Kayla: So pros and cons: There are a lot of things that I really like about living in apartments.
First of all, I don't like to be super stagnant. I have found I don't like staying in the same area for years and years and years. [00:01:30] I know back in the day, certainly in my parents' generation and my grandparents' generation, that was the preferred way to go about doing things.
And I know things like having kids and stuff like that, you want that stability. But for me as a relatively young adult, I like the option of ending a lease and “Oh, do I want to go live in this neighborhood? Do I maybe want to move to another state?” I like that that's all still kind of up in the air and [00:02:00] everything's possible. So that is a big appeal of apartment life to me.
Other things that I really like about apartment living: I really enjoy that I am not responsible for the maintenance of my unit, you know? There is a maintenance team that handles that. How good or not they are, we'll get into in a minute.
But, you know, if my refrigerator stops working or my washer and dryer go [00:02:30] out, I don't have to pay for that and dip into my own savings to buy these large expensive utilities, right? The apartment complex covers that. So I really enjoy that.
I also really like that being in apartments, you do have the opportunity to meet new people. Again, pros and cons, we'll get into it. But I have met some really cool people just by living near them and made some good friends that way. [00:03:00] So I think that is also something that, is maybe not super unique to apartment life, you certainly could do that if you owned a home and like had neighbors, but I think there's more of a communal feeling to living in an apartment.
If you do make friends with your neighbors, you're all kind of in the same situation. You know the details and the dramas and what you like and don't like about the apartment complex. So you kind of have those things [00:03:30] in common.
Kayla: On the other hand if you are unlucky enough to get a bad neighbor, maybe just an unpleasant person, maybe someone who is mentally unwell, it can really, really hurt your quality of life. And I think that is probably the biggest challenge of apartment living. Especially if you live in an apartment complex where [00:04:00] it's not just like one or two units in your building. It's a whole complex. It's an apartment tower structure.
You're in there with dozens, if not hundreds of other people, it's a lot of personalities, a lot of different lifestyles to have to navigate. And inevitably you kind of end up just getting a neighbor at some point that you guys really don't get along and it can really, really hurt your quality of life.
The [00:04:30] last building I lived in I was unlucky enough to have a neighbor above me who I genuinely believe was mentally unwell. And I do not know what she was doing, but it sounded like she was taking a bowling ball, holding it above her head, and then throwing it onto the ground with every ounce of strength she had. Over and over again. Throughout every single night of the week. I mean, [00:05:00] it was insane.
For a little bit my partner and I thought maybe she had a large dog living in her apartment. Our complex did allow that. So we're like, “Maybe it's a dog and it has like a chew toy or something and it just can't sleep.” And, you know, try to give her the benefit of the doubt and realize we're all kind of living in this sardine can together. Maybe that's what it is.
But eventually it was just, it was so bad. It was nonstop. It would [00:05:30] literally like shake the walls of our apartment. And this was happening right above our bedroom. So we could not get a good night's sleep for months.
And as you don't sleep, that wears on your mental health, and then your patience, and the rest of your life suffers. It just became a really bad situation.
So eventually he, my partner, went upstairs and knocked on a couple of doors just to kind of sort out which apartment it was because there were a couple that it potentially could have been, [00:06:00] just in the way that that unit was laid out.
So, you know, he wasn't rude or aggressive about it. Knocked on some doors like, “Hey, if you aren't aware, like, someone's making kind of a lot of noise at night. If you think this could be you, could you please just try to be a little quieter. We're not able to sleep.”
And one of the doors he knocked on kind of let us know that, “Oh, it's probably this person next door. She has come out of her [00:06:30] apartment and like banged on our door for no reason and sort of harassed us.” And it wasn't really seeming like it was a rational, maybe stable person. So we didn't pursue it any further with that tenant.
But we did go to our leasing office and I sent them video recordings of just the sound that we would be hearing in our room at three in the morning, five in the morning, ten PM at night, like constantly. [00:07:00] And there was a clause in our lease agreement that said, you know, “Be quiet between these hours and these hours.”
She was clearly violating that. Didn't seem to make a difference. Luckily or not that building had a lot of other problems and we actually ended up getting to terminate our lease early without any repercussions because a pipe burst above our apartment and it completely wrecked our apartment.And we were [00:07:30] able to move out early.
But when you're in that kind of situation, you have a neighbor that you just cannot come to an agreement with about, especially noise seems to be a big one in a lot of apartment units, it can just make the rest of your life really awful.
In that situation, I was at the point where I didn't want to come home. If we would like go visit family or friends in a different city I did not want to come back to our house because it didn't feel like home to me because I couldn't [00:08:00] sleep. And it just really, really can drag down everything else in your life.
So if you're dealing with that, I really really feel for you. It's not fun. It's awful.
Kayla: But there are certain things that you can try to do to get through that.
One thing I would say is generally, I would not advise confronting the person directly. In this case like I said, my partner did go upstairs and like knock on [00:08:30] doors. He did speak to that neighbor one time, but she denied that she was the person doing it and you know, clearly wasn't going to try to stop doing whatever she was doing.
Always try to go through your leasing office when possible. Maybe just make it extra clear to them like, “I want to remain anonymous. This is the problem I'm having. Can you please try to stop this?”
And sometimes you do have to follow up with them several times, maybe many times. [00:09:00] But keep documenting what is happening. Keep sending the emails, because that does create a paper trail for you.
And record, take photographs, do whatever you can without violating the other person's privacy like to document that like, “I'm not just saying this. This is how loud the sound is. And this is what I can hear in my apartment coming from the apartment next door or above us,” or whatever.
So do that. And then if it becomes really bad, [00:09:30] maybe the neighbor is getting kind of aggressive with you or they're now upping the ante because you have brought it to their attention. If it gets really bad, you can also call the police and basically make a claim of harassment and try to get the police to look at it.
But again, like all of these things, it can kind of wear on you. So try to do what you can. If you need to, consider breaking your lease early. If [00:10:00] it's too expensive to do that, you don't know where else to live, just try to do whatever you can in your environment to drown out the other person.
If that means sleeping with a noise machine or like a rain sounds app on kind of loud all night, do that. That's what I do at my current apartment, which I really like, but the upstairs neighbors do walk around pretty heavily. It might not be their fault. It's probably somewhat the floor's fault, but [00:10:30] I just sleep with an app on that kind of drowns out all that noise. And that really helps me.
If it is something like there's a streetlight or, you know, a neighbor's porch light that's on and off, or just constantly blinding you during the night, get blackout curtains. Get a sleep mask. Just try to do whatever is within your control to make the situation better.
And continue to make the complaints and document any like [00:11:00] over-the-top issues you're having with neighbors to the apartment complex or the police. Because if you become enough of a problem to them, and they don't want to deal with you anymore, they're eventually going to try to deal with the neighbor in order to stop these recurring complaints coming from you.
Kayla: Another thing that can be a bit of a downside to living in apartments is, at least in the area I live, which is in the greater Washington DC area, a lot of apartment complexes here do [00:11:30] not seem to have in-unit washers and dryers.
The last place I was living, it was one laundry room with maybe 20 washers and dryers for about nine floors of tenants. And I mean, big like L-shaped wings of floors.
So there were just not enough washers and dryers for everyone who lived there. And on top of that, half of them were always broken or out of order. Other tenants would flood them or just [00:12:00] leave their stuff in there for weeks on end. It was not a great situation. A
nd again, just made it hard to kind of feel like that was home. And then come to find out when we were moving out. One of the other tenants told me that there was a man in that apartment building who was going around stealing women's underwear out of the dryers. So, not great.
In that case it's honestly sometimes easier to just go to a local laundromat. If you have a [00:12:30] friend with a washer and dryer ask them if you can use their laundry facilities and maybe like bring them pizza or some drinks or something to pay them back for taking up their space or using their equipment. But if the laundry facilities at your apartment complex are not helpful to you, just try to do what you can to find ones that are.
Another thing that can kind of get old about living in apartments is that you do tend to move a lot more. [00:13:00] I have lived in probably four different apartments in the last three years. And one of those was because the last one flooded so that was a short-lived lease.
But moving your stuff from one building to another, sometimes across states, to different neighborhoods, whatever the case might be, that can definitely get old really fast, especially if you have really heavy furniture that, you know, as it comes time to [00:13:30] move again, you're just looking at it and you're like, “God, do I really want to be bothered to move that?”
But one way to kind of make that process easier is to just try to not get furniture that is really heavy, you know? Kind of keep your lifestyle in mind, buy pieces that are smaller or buy secondhand furniture or thrifted furniture that, if it comes down to it, you don't mind just leaving or giving away to someone.
[00:14:00] And then as you do end up moving around more you kind of get used to the process of, “Okay, I'm going to like pack all this stuff from the kitchen, and then I'm going to pack all this stuff from here,”
Kayla: “and I'm going to leave these couple things out until moving day.” And it kind of just becomes like a checklist that you get used to. But it can definitely be a really time-consuming and stressful process to pack all your stuff up and take it somewhere else.
As far as maintenance goes, the maintenance team at my current complex [00:14:30] is really, really great. They're busy so sometimes I have to follow up with them a couple of times, but they always come out. They always fix things. I've never been left waiting for months on end with like a hole in my ceiling or something. So I can't complain there.
If you live in a place where the maintenance team is not on it, where you don't have hot water or you have like mold somewhere and they're not fixing it, you need to keep emailing [00:15:00] the leasing office about it, keep submitting maintenance requests so that you're creating that paper trail.
And if something happens that results in you becoming sick or injured because maintenance is being neglectful then you kind of have that paper trail that if you need it to take legal action, you could.
And it's kind of sad that we have to think about it that way, but sometimes you do, and it's better to have those things, then not have them if it comes down to that.
Kayla: Overall, I really enjoy apartment life. You know, like I said, there are definitely some downsides and when they're bad, they can be really bad. But overall, I think that, especially given the housing market in the US right now, I will probably live in apartments for the remainder of my adult life.
I don't really see me trying to buy a house anytime soon. And I'm okay with that. I like where I live. [00:16:00] I found a place that has an in-unit washer and dryer. The neighbors are all relatively quiet.
Like I said, you kind of have to make some concessions and just accept that you are living with other people. And if your upstairs neighbors stomp around a lot well, you know, that's going to be part of living in a unit with people above you.
But as long as you are able to sleep and no one is making you feel unsafe or really disrupting your quality of life, I consider it a win [00:16:30] and I would just encourage you to like, keep that mindset about it.
Like everything isn't going to be amazing and perfect. And you're not going to have the same level of control of your property as if you are living in a house, but you do get to have your own space and also not have to deal with the hassles of replacing utilities or, you know, repairing things about the apartment, the drywall, whatever.[00:17:00]
Kayla: And just to wrap up the episode, I think just some other tips that I would advise as far as really enjoying your space and living in an apartment: Don't be afraid to put a little bit of money into decorating.
I mean, I used to just never decorate my apartments or even my dorm rooms in college because I was like, “Well, I'm not going to be here forever so I'm not going to spend, you know, five dollars on this light string,” or whatever it is.
But [00:17:30] honestly, it does make a difference if you put time into things like that. If you put up like some shelving, just get some little decorations for the walls. My recording room here is pretty bare because this is my guest bedroom but if you put a little bit of effort into making your apartment cozy, even if it feels like it might be kind of pointless, it really does make a difference.
It makes you feel more like, “This is my space. And I feel at home here,” which just makes [00:18:00] everything about living there better.
Another thing I would say is it can definitely be useful to invest in a doorbell camera. I know some cameras, they kind of have to be hardwired in. You don't have to go that route. You can buy relatively cheap but well-working security cameras from places like Amazon or Walmart and just install them above your door with a couple of nails.
Usually the [00:18:30] actual camera piece, like detaches, and you can charge that, pop it back up there, really great for apartment living where you might want to take that with you in another year or two.
It's a really good solution and just adds that extra sense of security of being able to see who's walking past your door, who's at the door when someone is there, and even just down to things like when you get food delivered, you could see when the food's there. It's great. So also recommend that.
And then last but not least I would say, do [00:19:00] make an effort to you, yourself, not be the bad neighbor. I think sometimes, especially if you live in a unit where there are people below you, it's hard to tell what it sounds like when you're moving around or you're going about your life to the people below you.
So one thing that I think helps a lot is getting house shoes, like a cushioned, soled slippers that just maybe muffle the sound of your feet hitting the floor a little bit. I know I can definitely be a heavy [00:19:30] walker. My partner can definitely be a heavy walker. And if there's someone below you and they're just hearing like *stomp, stomp, stomp* all the time you're going to get on their nerves pretty fast, even if you don't mean anything malicious by it.
So get some slippers and just try to be mindful of the time of day, and not be too loud past maybe like nine, ten PM. If your neighbors have kids be aware that the kids are probably in school at certain times of the year.
And [00:20:00] just try to not make enemies with the people around you, because that can really detract from the experience of living at an apartment.
Kayla: So that is all I have for today. As always, if there's a topic you want me to discuss, or you have some comments that you want me to air out, you know, let me know. You can email me at routinedramapod@gmail.com.
And, [00:20:30] I do realize my microphone and video setup is not a hundred percent ideal right now. I do know that. Like I said in episode one, really just trying to get this launched and I do have plans to invest in a better mic and camera in the future.
So bear with me for the time being, and I appreciate you being here.
Bye.
[00:20:50] Outro music