by Lynda Chitwood

Created on: February 10, 2009

Never judge a book by its cover. That's what we've been told, and we've all seen that it's true. If you have ever had to appraise renters, you know how true that can be.

There's a young couple that lives in the apartment next door. She is quiet, an educated professional who works full-time and from their apartment. Her boyfriend, on the other hand, is a 20-something teenager. He plays (occasionally) semi-pro football and coaches for a local high school, wears his hair down to the middle of his back and is covered in tattoos, his favorite one is where a porn star signed her name and he had it tattooed. He is a fan of heavy and thrash metal music and video games. They have a pit bull.

The woman who was our on-site manager is responsible for this. She either quit or was fired, I never got the real story, but I took over for her as on-site manager. She told me that if anyone asked, the dog was a boxer. I am quite certain that the duo next door was her way of "sticking it to" a management company with which she'd become displeased. If that was indeed her intention, then her plan backfired.

In the three years that these two have been my neighbors, I have yet to hear any music or video game noise.
Someone forgot to tell the dog he is a pit bull, I've seen hamsters more deadly. Having known them as neighbors, friends and tenants, you couldn't ask for better. They are responsible dog owners, courteous neighbors, respectful tenants and just plain good people.

The couple that had previously rented next door was a pastor and his fiance. They were just starting their "church" and had no meeting place, so Wednesday night services were held in the apartment. The noise wasn't bad when the pastor was delivering his sermon, but the period of "fellowship" afterward became quite loud. As they gained members, it was not uncommon for them to have upwards of fifty people crammed in their living room. As is common with any gathering, the more people there are, the longer they stay, and the more noise they make. Often on Wednesday nights, I would be at their door as late as midnight, hammering on it because they couldn't hear over the chaos.
At first I was nice, asking them to please be considerate. Then I posted a nasty letter on their door, suggesting in my sarcastic way that maybe God frowns on people who disrupt the sleep of their neighbors.

The previously mentioned on-site manager had two part-time jobs; she was never at the building to witness this, and my complaints fell on deaf

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