Reflections on Apartment Living (and other first world problems)

So this morning, I awoke to the sound of what I thought may have been someone knocking on our door... no, window? ... nope..... oh, perhaps our neighbor is hanging things on her wall... at 8am?!?! Really??? Nope.... Now there is drilling... What the heck?!

After further exploration (via getting my hiny out of bed and walking to the front of our apartment) I realized that actually, it was MAJOR construction happening on our staircase which is approximately 3 feet from our front door. The same staircase that, for the first 4 months of living here, swayed from side to side as we climbed to the second floor because it was that poorly attached to the building, and the same staircase that causes our entire side of the building to shake like an earthquake should anyone decide to conquer the steps with any sort of tenacity (ie: walking quickly, trotting, stomping, storming, running...etc.).

Speaking of earthquake, we had one! In March of this year. Alex and I were not home (thank God!) because I had enough of a scary "the world is going to end, and we're all going to die" moment just 32 miles away from the epicenter, which was less than a mile from our apartment. Actually, based on the damage to our apartment (and the complex), I'm convinced (because I'm an expert in tectonic ridges and all the things) that the ridge actually ran down the center of our apartment. I think that, not because I have studied seismic activity (as you might assume), but because all of our stuff (technical term) on one side of the apartment was thrown one way, and one the other side was thrown another way. This is scientific observation at its finest, really. Wanna see pictures? I know you're dying to.

 

Okay, okay, while it was pretty traumatic to walk into our apartment that looked like it had been ransacked, and have to part with 2 of our coffee presses, the fact remains that we were safe, and really, we still had 2 coffee presses remaining. (I mean we had 4 of them! In different sizes, that my husband had collected in his bachelor days- not complaining :) 

So, our staircase, as you may imagine, was WORSE, after being twisted from the earthquake. And about 4 weeks later, they re-stabilized the beams the stairs were attached to (which had been all rotted out... And today, on this glorious morning of wonderful deep sleep, months ( 5 months to be exact, but who's counting???) after the stairs practically fell off the second floor of our building, the stairs were (loudly) finished being repaired. 

The joys of apartment living. 

Also, can we talk about not having a washer and dryer IN our unit? I'm the worst at laundry, and hauling my chones across the lawn to the laundry facility is not my cup of tea. 

Can you believe how inconvenient all of these first world conveniences are???

Me neither. 

 

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