I’ve been in my current apartment for six months, an anniversary that’s exactly five months and twenty-nine days after I discovered all the flaws I somehow overlooked before I signed the lease. There are three questions every potential renter should ask before picking an apartment: 1) Does the carpet show stains? 2) Do you do background checks on potential renters? 3) What’s the biggest farm animal that can fit under the kitchen sink? The fact that I asked all three and was still allowed to get an apartment here proves they don’t do background check. The screening process consisted of me writing a check for the first month’s rent, which should have been effective since only law-abiding citizens own checkbooks or rent apartments. Outlaws live in burrows deep within the earth, although it’s possible that I’m confusing criminals with badgers.
For a while, I refused to believe our neighbors are criminals, mainly because their physical characteristics are only somewhat badger-like and their constant paranoia is only mostly hostile. In the second story apartment directly across the landing from my own lives a forty-year old man and his two teenage-to-early-twenty-something sons from two different women. I know this because they’ve lovingly screamed these details at one another on various occasions. I’ve also learned from these healthy, high-volume discussions that one son has broken into multiple apartments in this complex and the other son owns a handheld, concealable device capable of “plugging someone.” This is most likely a tube of caulk, indicating that both sons are vigilante plumbers who are willing kick down doors to avert plumbing-related disasters before they occur. This would explain why the police have only been at their apartment twice in the last two months and the fire department only once. Not even the crack detectives with the Langleyville Police Department can fault the brothers for committing mildly criminal acts to fight back against leaky sinks and rogue turds that refuse to go quietly into the municipal sewer system.
Of course, I do have a second, somewhat less naïve theory about the mysterious activities that go on next door. Every time one of the half-brothers hears someone walk up the stairs, they throw open their door and stare suspiciously. They have the same reaction if they hear a car door in the parking lot. Strange smells also waft under their door with disturbing regularity. Based on this evidence, there’s only one conclusion I can draw: Lola and I live next to cattle rustlers. It took me a few days to reach that determination, but the use of incense to cover up bovine flatulence was a dead give away. I’m not sure how many cows they have in there, but it’s probably not more than six or eight since it’s a second story apartment. The last time police searched our neighbors’ humble dwelling, they didn’t find any cows. That’s why I’m positive there are less than nine cattle in there. If there were any more than that, they wouldn’t all fit under the kitchen sink.
If you ignore the red and blue flashing lights that regularly appear outside our apartment, there’s a lot to like about this complex. It has a romantic view of the interstate, and on still summer afternoons you can smell the dog poop sweltering on the patio of the house directly below our biggest window. Even if we did consider moving, we still have ten months on our lease and I’m far too lazy to move all of our furniture back down one flight of stairs. Besides, any apartment complex without background checks will have its own batch of vigilante plumber cattle rustlers, and any apartment that does checks won’t let me live there. Living next to our neighbors might not be the most pleasant situation in the world, but at least Lola and I save a few dollars a week on milk.
