It took me less than a week to get used to my new surroundings. It was extremely quiet and the neighbors seemed nice enough and with those two pluses going for me, I really liked that and knew it was going to get much better.Back in the old neighborhood, I was lucky if I was able to even talk to a neighbor or perhaps just the passers-by, the people who picked through her garbage that she used to lie against the fence, that is.
She thought she was being so charitable by doing that, but it brought vagrants to the house and close enough to my apartment that it scared me, for fear, like the break-in of Christmas night, 2003, that it would happen all over again. It also brought uninvited guests, as one time someone broke into her boyfriend’s Jeep, looking for valuables.
Also, I lived within a gang war-zone, what with Evanston cop cars whizzing by on weekend nights almost regularly, sometimes up to four or five within minutes of each other. (see the Tuesday, August 2 (2005) posting of The Unintentional Gift: Behold! The Russian Mail-Order Internet Bride>Act 1, for a somewhat better description of the gang-war zone where I lived in during my time in Evanston) The park where I lived across the street from was always full of gang-bangers, not to mention the place where I lived for so long was a mini-war-zone within itself.
Never could I have imagined in a time frame of two and a half years just living in that hellhole some of the antics that occurred would have even arisen, if it wasn’t for our personalities either not mixing or constantly clashing.
Little did I know about the history of that apartment, until I moved in and little did I know about the landlady and her yapping dogs and should have probably checked her out more carefully before I actually moved in. Little did I know about the neighborhood before I moved there and little did I understand the politics of Evanston and legalities before I arrived as a former citizen of Chicago to live in one of the more progressive suburbs in the Chicago area.
In the time that has come and gone where I have lived for the past 12 and a half months, I’ve enjoyed my life fully; it’s been much quieter, I’ve been much happier and with the exception of the mice invasion earlier this year and perhaps one complaint about my music being too loud during a week-day morning, I’d say, overall it’s been great.
I signed a lease to live where I’m at for a second year last month. The landlord has been exceedingly gracious and kind, even through the mice invasion and last year even sent me a holiday card, which completely caught me off-guard and surprised me totally!
My neighbors have proved to be friendly for the most part with the exception of the one neighbor that smokes in the apartment below me and the neighbors across the alley from me in the residential homes that I had to call the city health department and the city on for feeding stray animals, rodents mostly (I’ll save the story for another blog) and the fire and police department a number of times for holding parties well past 3 a.m. on weeknights and building bonfires without any covering!
During the winter snowstorm we experienced this past January, I never saw so much help and love and care on this mere block that I live on. So many neighbors helped so many others, I included, especially when I accidentally locked myself out of my apartment the day of the big snowstorm and the building manager came to my rescue within 20 minutes of my phone call that I made from a neighbor’s apartment.
In fact, single every time it has rained, I just smile and think of the poor sap that lives in that piece of shit illegal apartment that she still rents out. But I have every right to smile. I’m out of there at long last and that is what matters most.
And there you have it; my tale of personal hell, dear readers.
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