The Apartment Life

For this post I just wanted to blog about apartment experiences. I started my apartment journey after being kicked off campus sophomore year of college. Since then I've just jumped between complexes.

However, I'm reaching 5 years of working post graduation and the charm of apartment life is fading.

Rent vs Own

For an apartment, every month I give up money that does not compound towards ownership. It effectively is just spent money in order to live. I think this is probably a circle dumb argument of "rent vs own", but it is something to think about.

You generally don't have to worry about any maintenance in an apartment and you can safely budget with a month to month rate. This of course will change every year though as inflation rockets price. This gives merit to owning a home as hopefully inflation follows your property increasing value as every year passes.

However, the downsides to apartments are becoming too much:

• Asshole neighbors
• Forced payment (liability facility fee, increased valet trash fee)
• Asshole neighbors

So lets talk about some stories.

The Killer

For years living in my current complex there was this orange calico cat. It would sleep under cars and in the mornings you would startle it as it ran back to this corner apartment. Getting back from work late I would see this cat relaxing on the sidewalk. It wouldn't run away, it was a playful friendly neighbor cat.

On December 18, 2019 I saw this cat flattened dead via a tire track in the middle of the apartment complex road. Let me tell you, there are corners and stop signs every 100 meters in this complex. I'm hoping this was an honest accident, but based on the location of the lifeless body, I'm thinking it was negligence or even intentional.

The Destruction

I blogged about this before, but I can't tell if I'm being intentionally targeted or just one unlucky individual. My car was vandalized here across the passenger side on 3 different panels. I thought it was directed at me, but then I started paying attention more and noticed similar key marks on other cars in the parking lot.

One morning I came outside and the door handle of my car was ripped off. I imagine because someone was checking door handles for an easy to open theft.

I imagine car vandalism becomes quite difficult if you own a home and garage.

The Annoyances

In my current complex, we have valet trash boxes outside of every door. They are picked up nightly (except Friday & Saturday) and are taken to the trash compactor on-site for disposal. This would seem fine, except people are just frankly idiots.

The rules aren't insane. They break down to basically.

• Please tie and bag your trash.
• Please don't have leaking bags.
• Please don't put out trash if you missed pickup window.

However, generally every Friday getting home from work my corridor is littered in bags. I think folks are well aware they aren't picked up till Sunday, but they put them out there anyway.

You know what happens in 90 degree Florida weather with a bunch of trash outside? It starts to smell and attracts critters. I just can't fathom why folks can't follow a simple rule. Why trash the place you live?

Our apartment complex has caught on and started issuing $25 fines to people for violating this. However, these boxes are everywhere. So when I get home from work about 50% of the time there is trash in my bin! It is so upsetting because I have to either take my trash manually to the compactor or do the same thing someone did to me - and find an open trash bin for my trash.

I thought I would be an investigator and confront who keeps putting trash in my bin, but not a single bin in my building has the same white bag with red ties. This just blows my mind. Is someone intentionally using a different trash bag to dispose in my bin?

I want to leave the apartment complex life, because I'm either unlucky or have an enemy. Though, its a big jump to become an owner of a condo or home. So I guess the research begins.