Apartment living is interesting in so many ways. I sort of thought by now I would be beyond apartment living. Although, I also never thought I would be living in Singapore. Plus I don't have a spare 8-10K a month that it would cost me to live in a house around here. So apartment living it is. Which is not all bad, really. For example, we get security at the entrance to our building, the availability without maintenance of a pool, no grass to mow... We also lucked out and got a top floor apartment, which means you can't have crazy loud neighbors pounding around over-head (I sort of suspect WE might be those neighbors to the floor below us). But the architectural design of our building is...unusual. For example, the designer's managed to create a building where 90% of the apartments get full-on afternoon sun blaring into their apartment. Have I mentioned it's hot here? Every. Single. Day. I guess the joke is on us since we moved into the building called SUN Plaza.
Another fun design about our particular unit is that our bedroom windows look directly onto the patio of the floor below us. Which is interesting because you could be changing into your pajamas and they could be having a dinner party on the patio and all of a sudden they have new party entertainment. This is hypothetical; it has NEVER happened. Seriously. But only because they are not the dinner-party-throwing type. Curtains can be utilized to avoid the Peeping Tom affect, but keeping your curtains closed all day is a little too hermit-esk for us. So as an additional measure, we thought it would be nice to plant some trees in the bays outside our window. That way our windows are sort of covered and we can open the curtains to enjoy the daylight. Being in Asia and because they are so eco-friendly, we opted for bamboo trees to fill the space. They look quiet lovely, right?
A few weeks after planting the bamboo trees, we had a visit from our downstairs neighbor who was complaining that large amounts of leaves were being shed onto his patio. Would we mind getting rid of the trees and replacing them with something else? A few points to remind you of before you think we are terrible neighbors. 1. We had just invested a not-insignificant monetary amount to buy our trees 2. We had also invested some time and energy in planting and caring for the trees and 3. We really liked the way they looked outside our window. But not wanting to be completely disagreeable, we offered to move the trees so long as our neighbor would buy us replacement plants of equal value. This offer was met with a scowl and a huff and a rapid retreat back to his apartment. A few weeks later, our neighbor returned for a similar conversation. To which he gave the same complaints and we gave him the same offer of moving the plants if he bought replacement trees for us. We thought the issue was likely over once he again refused to pay for replacement plants.
However, not too long after that second conversation, we started hearing loud construction and drilling outside our bedroom window. We started to peek down at what was going on with curiosity. Is he building a roof for this patio? Sure enough, up went an awning that covered from our bedroom windows to about mid-way over his patio. I guess an alternate solution to us getting rid of the trees is for him to cover the patio. As is turned out, the awning did little for relieving the falling-leaf-on-patio problem. The leaves would drop onto the awning until the slightest breeze would come up, at which point they would be blown off onto the second half of his patio. Truthfully we thought very little about this as it was occurring since it wasn't really a problem for us. We did get the general feeling that he didn't like us, because occasionally we would end up on the same elevator and he would either give us a death-glare or just pretend we didn't exist. But, given what I know now, I sort of imagine these leaves driving our neighbor mad. You know, like, he walks out to his patio and a shedding leaf floats down into his unkept hair and he nearly goes apoplectic. Or the sound of walking on dry leaves during his evening smoke break makes him want to burn his ears off. This sort of crazy.
I say this because, after several years, he has finally enacted his revenge. This first started the week that we brought Nate home. We noticed construction noises and loud drilling. From around noonish until 3 pm. Which happens to directly span our daughter's naptime. Such that during our most fragile transition to a family of four and extreme lack of sleep, our daughter was unable to take her much-need nap and we were unable to have the couple hours of daytime reprieve. You may think this is a coincidence but I tell you that working from noon-3pm is the WORST time to work in Singapore and most construction halts for siesta. Point 1 for neighbor. Then, when we saw what he was building, we were even more appalled. He was adding an extention to the previous awning so that there are no cracks over his patio for the much loathed leaves to fall through. But instead of starting completely over and doing a nice roof, he just threw together the second half complete with different materials and color. So the upshot is a very unsightly, ghetto-looking awning that we stare down on from our bedroom window. Point 2 for neighbor. And finally, the added twist to the revenge plot we didn't discover until the next rainstorm. Rain hitting that new awning is loud. Really loud. It sounds like a thousand tin drums playing outside our window. What an evil genius! Point 3 for neighbor.
Finally, I would just like to say that, although we are losing this battle at the moment, we may get the last laugh after all. Which is, of course, that we are mere renters and will hopefully be leaving in the not too distant future. The trees will probably go with our departing, but he will be stuck with a mis-matched covering that can't be any quieter from the other side of the awning.
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