The Drunk Neighbor Chronicles @drunkneighbor - Tumblr Blog

P.P.S.

Even after DN moved a bunch of his stuff to his girlfriend’s mom’s house, after his friend came along and took everything he wanted from the house, after the maintenance guy took three minivan-loads of crap off to the dump, the amount of stuff that is STILL coming out of that house defies the laws of physics.

Every time I haven’t seen him in a day, I think, oh, he must have finally got everything. Then, at 10pm, he comes back with a teenage boy in tow, to haul out yet another minivan-load of junk. He keeps up a pretty constant stream of swearing in Russian while he works.

#drunk neighbor #hoarder

Postscript

It turns out Drunk Neighbor did not bother to tell the landlord he was leaving. So, yesterday, the property manager and a cop came to evict him for non-payment of rent and discovered an empty apartment. Well, empty of people. He left a lot of trash behind.

They were there for a while. While they were standing in the doorway talking, the cop picked up a piece of paper and squinted at it for a while, and said, "Either he's dyslexic, or really drunk."

#drunk neighbor

Epilogue

A couple weeks after the last post, Drunk Neighbor moved to Europe with his new girlfriend. He was kind enough to leave a lot of rusty nails scattered all over the walkway for me, so that I think of him every time I narrowly avoid a puncture wound.

So that really is the end.

Unless someone equally weird moves into his old apartment. Which could happen. It's that kind of place.

The End, Probably

I reserve the right to change my mind if he gets sufficiently weird or annoying, but I probably won't be posting about DN anymore. I started out posting about the weird shit he did because I found his habits less irritating if y'all could get some entertainment out of them

I noticed that occasionally my posts or the comments bordered on making fun of someone for having real psychological problems, so I avoided that to focus on minor instances of weirdness rather than more serious "this guy clearly has an alcohol problem and possibly brain damage and is probably going to maim himself by welding while impaired" issues.

But now I haven't been posting about him for the opposite reason. DN seems to have curbed his more obnoxious habits, cut back on the drinking, and organized his junk pile. He has a girlfriend who cares about him and a job that pays his rent and a hobby doing something constructive. I have none of those things. It feels kind of ridiculous to make fun of someone who has it together way more than I do.

I'm happy for him. But maybe he should be writing funny posts about me.

DN under a different influence

I think I just saw DN in another rare sober appearance. He told me about his latest moneymaking scheme which seems... actually plausible. He's going to make little metal and concrete tables. He showed me the caliper he made so he can get the golden ratio without measuring and speed up the process.

Also, he was wearing clothes with no obscene pictures, he looked to have cut his hair sometime in the last few months, and he wasn't holding a beer or a joint. At no point did he laugh like a cartoon maniac or swing a homemade weapon at anything.

Holy shit. New Neighbor has freaking magical powers.

When another of my neighbors comes to see DN, he pounds on the door and yells "Police!" Is he setting DN up to answer the door with a joint in his hand, only to find actual cops at his door?

The music from DN's house today: marching bands. Mainly drums. It's like hearing an endless halftime show. It might be the most irritating thing to ever come from DN's stereo, and this is a guy who listens to the same Screamin' Jay Hawkins song eight times in a row.

I thought my neighbors were having a cookout when I got home, but actually DN was burning the labels off paint cans in his grill while his girlfriend watched and drank a lot of wine.

Another neighbor, also drunk but not to the point of capitalization, ranted at me about web design and banks for a while and asked me what I did. When I told him, he said, "Damn. This place. You come back here and there are these little run-down houses, and all the cars in front are kind of old beaters, and then you end up talking about all kinds of crazy things! This is one educated fucking neighborhood." Then he stumbled back to his house for another beer.

DN is potting up flowers to hang by the new neighbor's windows. He's digging up the dirt to fill the pots from the yard.

DN can always tie a nice gesture to a destructive one.

#drunk neighbor

DN is whacking things in the yard again. I didn't realize anyone over 12 could make a full-blown hobby out of swinging a weight on a chain at inanimate objects.

#weapons #drunk neighbor

Nobody will ever match Florida Man, but I think DN is a solid contender for North Carolina Man.

DN is wandering around the neighborhood, whacking things with his latest homemade weapon. He yells when he swings it; it actually sounds like he's in pain. Then someone will walk by on the way to their apartment and he just says "hi, wassup," as if he's not in the middle of beating a tree with a lump of metal on a chain.

Early in the morning, DN emerged from the new girl’s apartment, shirtless. He had her dog with him. He attached its collar to a rope hanging from the zipline. Well, that mystery is solved. But it leaves the bigger mystery of what happened to that girl's judgment.

DN has put up a zip line. I haven't seen him use it yet. It doesn't look strong enough to hold a person.

DN has made himself a new “medieval” weapon, and he’s using it to beat the crap out of a large road cone in the yard. The new girl is watching him from the roof and laughing.

DN has been on a whirlwind of creativity lately. Contraptions pop up in the yard and then are dismantled the next day to make new contraptions. There was a tire swing for a while; then the tire became a counterweight on what used to be a windmill tower but is, for today, a sculpture. There's an axe head with a bit of rebar welded on for a handle, perpendicular to where an axe handle would normally be. He's even been painting his projects, and in colors other than flat black.

I suspect he's spending as much time as he can in the yard, so he can talk to the new neighbor, who likes to sit out and work on the roof. So far she seems not to be repelled.

The place does look a lot better.

So this actually has not a single thing to do with DN.

My friend Julie Schurr is doing her Master's project on televangelists and the ways they use language to manipulate people. And now she's been invited to Switzerland to a big linguistic conference to present her research! Problem is, flying to Switzerland is obviously expensive, and Julie is a grad student. So, send a few bucks her way and support exposing sleazy TV preachers' verbal tricks!

(Also, she sings awesomely dirty folk songs)

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