Don’t get me wrong, which will be easy to do should you continue reading, but the couple above us are about the nicest people in the world. They also happen to be among the most unintentionally loud people in the world, which would be comical if their schedule was not diametrically opposed to Hayes’.

Oh, and did I mention they are right over our bedrooms?

We used to love the layout of the apartment. It’s in two browstones that house 5 units. 4 of the units are two level and one spans both browstones. That one is ours and, over time, we’ve realized it about the worst set up possible because we have 4 different neighbors. One neighbor lives above our bedroom, one below, one lives above our living space, one below. Anything a neighbor does effects us, and recently they’ve been doing a lot.

Take our friends upstairs, whom, as I said, we think are great, very noisy guys. They do their laundry at 5 AM. 5 AM. Once it was 3AM. And their washer and dryer are directly above us. So guess what? When their spin cycle goes we hear it. And, more importantly, H hears it… and he’s not big into sleeping through such intrusions.

Oh, but that doesn’t happen that often. Only about once a week. Their dogs racing around their apartment at 5AM happens about every fucking day. Yah, I said fucking. And guess what? That wakes H up too. And he aint happy. Funny thing is — and by funny I mean about as funny as the bird flu — the dogs have ESP for H’s sleeping schedule. H goes to sleep, they start racing around.

This is how it sounds to us as we sit peacefully enjoying the quite of H sleeping:

No sound.

Earthquake as dogs — and these dogs have a combined weight of about 20lbs — run above.

H screams after being asleep for a full 5 minutes.

Lovely.

See, when I was working at home, and while Jen was pregnant, they decided to replace the carpeting in their bedroom with hardwood. Which, you know, made it about ten times louder for us. Then they bought dogs. The small kind that like to run.

But that’s not the worst thing. The worst thing is… wait for it… they own another place right down the street. They bought it two months ago. Their place has been on the market for over three months in which they’ve decided to stay, for some unkown reason, until it sells. So far they’ve reduced the price over 140k and no takers.

Yup, folks, the bubble has burst right over our heads. So, here’s the short and skinny: the thing that we’re hoping helps us buy a better house for our money so we can get the hell out of this noisy place is also making our stay in our apartment a nightmare. If that’s not irony for you, I don’t know what is.