I've been pretty busy, so today I'm only going to write a brief post. Firstly, I learned from the office about the building key issue. When they said "people were requesting" the locks, they meant prospective tenants were asking about them as they checked out the complex.  And for that reason, they are installing locks on the building doors. They're going at a rate of one building a month. So it's going to take them the better part of a year to get this done, but...they're doing it. Any progress is progress.  That's that.
The mail, however, is still in the works. I mean package drop-offs.  See this photo?

Those are the notices being left on the locked outside doors. More specifically, the door by the street which close to no one uses, and not the one by the parking lot where traffic is greatest. When I asked the office about it, I was told they've asked the postmen to leave notices on both doors. They haven't been doing so yet, but perhaps they'll figure it out. In the meantime, some carriers are able to get in the building, because we've still been getting some notes on our personal door. I'm not sure how that's happening, but it is.
And some reiteration time. The real issues I have here are the other tenants and building construction. For instance, I woke up this morning because the entire apartment smelled of crap. This has happened once before. And multiple times with pot smoke. My right-side neighbor and I share bathroom walls, and if they have serious smells in their apartment, it backs up and floods into mine. That is almightily annoying.  So...construction. And noisy neighbors. Those are my biggest issues. But I want to mention again that the staff here really are pretty great, the maintenance dudes and the office ladies. They're friendly, busy, and attend to issues quickly. I know I've complained about the office hours being sporadic before, but when they're there and working, they're pretty great. That's all for now. I'm not proofreading this because my head hurts. If I typo'd...oh well.  :u

No Title Today

Oops. That turned into a title. Oh well.

Did I already rant about the office hours? Firstly, I'll let you know they're bologna. Secondly, I'll use a list for brevity. And because I like lists.

1. The lunch hours. What are they? Whatever they are, they aren't scheduled. The office ladies just take off when they want, forsaking any attempt to have a schedule or routine. It sure would be nice if they had scheduled lunch hours, that way when I go down at like 11 or noon one day to find them closed, I can assume they'll be at lunch that time tomorrow as well. And not at like 1 or 2. They really have no schedule when it comes to lunchtime. Go at your risk when it's midday. 
2. They are oftentimes late as well. One time I got down there and the sign said they'd be back at the next hour. That was only a few minutes away, so I decided to wait around. "One thing led to another," and I ended up waiting an hour before the three ladies all showed up. Together, in the same car, they'd come back from some impromptu lunch party or something. Talk about unprofessional. There's three of them. If they're all working that day, they should take lunch breaks in turns so that the office is staffed--not all run out for two hours to have a party.
3. The being closed randomly is getting annoying. Sometimes, if they have a legit excuse, they'll put a sign up saying why they're closed. But usually, they're just closed. One example of many... Yesterday, Josh and I went down in hopes of getting a package that'd been left at the office. They were closed, but were supposed to open in ten minutes, so we hung around. (It was an important package.) About twenty minutes later, one of the ladies finally shows up to unlock the building, and instead of giving us our package, asks us to come back later. Wtf, but fine. So we came back later, and they were closed. Still. Again. Whatever. I could see them in there, via inconspicuous glances, but they wouldn't open. It's so flippin' annoying.   And today, they're still closed. Aaauguhsuldglsd.

So that's the rant about the office hours.  They're dumb. Moving on. None of the other buildings have locks or flyers warning about locks.  I'm starting to think they're only doing my building. Perhaps because there have been a lot of issues in my building. Party related issues. So they're only limiting traffic in my building. That's unfair and stupid, but eh.  And it'd work fine...if the ghetto residents didn't leave trash stuffed in the building doors to prop them open. Example A:

It was an empty foil box.  I'm pretty sure I know exactly who left it. So I snatched it from the door and went down to tell the office. But alas...they are closed today. I'm miffed for reasons like this:  these locks were installed with a purpose. The keys people had to pick up to use these locks were expensive. And carry a stupid-hefty fine for service, according to the office. And my ghetto neighbors are just going to ignore everything...and stuff trash in the door.  Jiminy Christmas, I hate them. What's the point of locks if you're going to prevent their use.  Also, I just hate my neighbors. But my knowing it was them, and my hate, are for another rant, another day...

I'll leave you with some little courtesy photos of the laundry room in my building. All four washers and dryers. I'm not sure the room gets cleaned once a month. It's usually kind of dirty. And unlocked.

Ghetto Neighbors

I won't go into detail. But if hearing your nasty neighbors shouting and arguing through the wall, and constantly slamming their porch door is something you'd like to avoid, I'd suggest avoiding this complex. I'll have more to post later, maybe tomorrow.  But for now, I just put on a movie and turned it up so I don't have to hear them.  Or the twats below us. God, I hate them all.

Laundry and Locks

Firstly, the laundry again. I'm just miffed because it stole some quarters. I dream of a day where I go to use a laundry machine I'm already paying for, and it won't steal my money. That would be awesome.

And then the building locks. Just my building, of course. I'm not sure whether or not the other 6-8 buildings are going to get locks on their outside doors. We'll see. But they did finally install the outdoor locks on my building.  They're aren't too shabby. Definitely cheap. But they work well enough. Smooth move, putting flimsy locks on a mostly glass door. But whatever.   Here's my issue, though. What about the pizza and delivery dudes?  Just today, I saw where a delivery man tried to get in to leave a notice on someone's door, but couldn't, so he left his sticky tab on the glass outside. The issue is that there are two building doors, one on either side of the building, and the parking lot is on the other side. The side where the delivery dude left his note is along the street where close to no one parks. It's more like a convenient drop-off. Everyone parks on the other side of the building. So there's a good chance that whoever will never see that note and be left wondering about his/her package.  And of course, if you're expecting delivery pizza, I guess you'll have to wait for 'em down there.

The whole thing just irks me.  Everything about this place. Especially the laundry things. Like different priced machines in different buildings, and that the only machines supplied to me have taken quarters from me. I really don't like this complex. Don't move here.

The On-Site Laundry

It's also a teeny bit sketchy, or at the least, disappointing. I have two to three simple reasons, listed with growing irritation.

1. In my building, and I believe the others, there are only 2-3 washing and drying machines in the laundry room. So you do have on-site laundry, in your building, but there may only be two machines, so schedule your laundry wisely. Sometimes I get to the laundry room, and one person is using both machines. Urg. All in all, though, that's not so big a deal.
2. I'll preface this next one with "No, it's not that big a deal to me." It honestly isn't. I haven't had any laundry stolen, so I'm not genuinely worried about the safety of my unattended clothing.  What it's about is integrity. When I signed the lease here, I was given a key to the laundry room in my building, which they claimed would always be locked. That's nice. That means way less people have casual access to the laundry room, which does deter theft. (Believe you me, it happens.) Anywho...that'd be great, except 1/3 of the time I visit my laundry room, it isn't locked.  Like I said, I'm not terribly worried for my laundry. The issue here is my management being able to stick to their word. Their integrity, their willingness to perform in the way they promised on my lease.  And claiming doors will be locked, when in fact they aren't, is just another of the many little things that irks me about their management.
3. Lastly, and the most sketchy to me:  Varying prices depending on which building you live in. Allow me to elaborate. If you've read the previous post or two, the one with the building keys, you'll recall I have a buddy in another building here.  I was hanging out with her one time while she was doing her laundry, so I got to check out the laundry room in another building, at the same complex, of course.  I was very surprised to find that her machines were just as small as mine, but by a different company, and almost twice the price.  Almost twice the price. For a laundry machine really no different from mine.  Sounds like complete bologna, right?  Boy wasn't SHE miffed when I told her.  My friend went to the office to ask about it, and management's reasoning is that they're using different companies for different buildings (or some BS like that), and they were planning on switching over "eventually."  (After eight months, they haven't.)  So for a tenant in another building, renting from the same complex, she's obligated to pay twice as much to use the on-site laundry facility, simply because of the building she lives in.   Doesn't that sound incredibly lame?

So ah....there's a third rant for today. I'm doing laundry, so it came to mind as something I ought to mention about this place. The unfair laundry prices, for sure. Management's mighty friendly, but...something about the complex in its entirety is just odd. Poorly planned. That's all I have for now (again).  See ya!

Noise Privacy

Or rather the lack thereof.  I know I already made a post today, but I was so annoyed that I felt the need to make another.  I was just in the kitchen, pouring myself some orange juice, when I was forced to hear part of the conversation below me.  From the kitchen/living room area, I can hear the people below me talking anytime they raise their voices above a polite library volume. (Which happens often. I hate the twats below me.)  There is obnoxiously little noise privacy in this apartment. It makes me wonder what other people hear from my apartment. I try to be decent  because someone has to be. But I do wonder...  I've never gotten noise complaints, so I'm obviously doing a fine enough job.  :\
But at the same time, after months and months and months of putting up with the noise around me, I don't quite care about being polite anymore. At least, not going out of my way to be silent. (I'm still decent.) I used to be a quiet little mouse, but I've become so malevolent that I do what I want, when I want, and if people hear it, well, it's about time they got some of what they're doing to me.  >8T

Herp derps

There wasn't really a suitable title for this post except that it's a couple minor complaints. Therefore, herp derps.   Firstly, the building keys. Allow me to fill you in on this briefly, with the help of a couple bullets.

• Back in October, my building had flyers posted on the doors about how the outside doors were soon going to have locks installed. We had a week to go to the office and pick up a key. If we missed that deadline, we had to pay a $35 fee to get one.  (That seems odd to me, but maybe I'm naive. I already pay to live here. Just give me the flippin' key, regardless of whether or not I pick it up in your timeline. I pay you money to live here. Don't deny me access.) I got my key on time, so I'm not complaining about that. But I thought it was lame all the same. So there's that.
• For a month, nothing happened. I spoke with two pals in my complex about it. One lives in another building, the other lives in my building. The first pal, the one in a different building, had no idea about the keys. Seems it either isn't happening at her building (which would be bizarre), or the office is simply doing one building at a time. The latter seems more likely. I'll keep up with that. So first buddy in another building didn't know anything about it.
• Second buddy, who lives in my building...  Apparently, when she went to the office to get her key, the chick working at the time had no idea what she was talking about. Wasn't the slightest bit aware that our building was getting keys and locks. (Kind of a large change for members of management to not know about.)  After a little more chatting, we realized that the manager decided to do this all on her own and hadn't even notified everyone in the office before she ran around our building posting notices.  That's really lame, man...   Especially, imho, since on her flyer, she claimed it was due to popular demand. She made it out to look like enough tenants had asked for locks to be installed on the doors that she had to comply.   ...Which doesn't seem to be true. Anyone I've spoken with was caught with their pants down about it. 

So the whole building key thing is kind of iffy. I'll keep my eye on it, make sure it happens in the other buildings. It'd be mighty odd if they were only doing my building--one of like...ten. But I wouldn't put it past them. This place is weird. Flippin' weird.

And lastly, a minor temporary complaint about their hours. I only have until the 5th to pay rent. That's no big deal and they're open until about 5 PM, typically.  It's frustrating, however, when I try to pay rent on the 1st, and they're closed. And I go back the next morning, and they're closed. What the flip-flop, guys. You give me five days to pay rent and aren't there the first couple days? Aaaugdhlgdsglsd.  Here's for hoping I can pay rent this evening.  That's enough ranting for now. Toodles.

Oh wait. I forgot to mention. In the previous post where I uploaded photos of the pooled water.. I accidentally deleted the photos. My bad. Maybe I'll get some replacement photos after the next big rain. :u