Slum Village

When does an apartment building slip into slum-dom? What is the line that must be crossed to go from low-income housing to fucked up demi-ghetto? I think, today, my apartment building has crossed this narrow boundary.

The trouble started when I awoke this morning...er, afternoon. At around 1:30 pm. There was no hot water. At all. Whatsoever. You see, there are about 10,000 people living in each apartment in my building (except mine, which simply has three slovenly guys). These people all need showers, need to do laundry, and have some obsessive need to clean their Escalades several times a week. (It may sound like I am exaggerating. I am not.)

So, at around 10 or 10:30 each morning, the building runs out of hot water. At this point, I'm almost used to it. I tend to wake up for work at around 8 or 8:30, so there's always hot water for a morning shower. And by the time I get home at night, the situation has stabilized, the day's 500 loads of underwear are complete and the water functions as usual. But today, it sucked. I spent a good deal of the afternoon with my sleep-funk fully intact.

This alone would not be a cause for alarm. Nor the several hundred children playing a game consisting of screaming at the top of their lungs for several hours. Nor the chicken dance polka music eminating from the apartment building along the way at a volume typically reserved for nuclear test detonations.

The issue I'm facing now is a massive moving van parked inconveniently in front of my car. I want to leave my apartment, see, and this is Los Angeles, so the only destination within walking distance is my automobile. So these morons placing their moving van directly in my drive path basically locks me into my apartment building. And they appear sorry and apologetic that I can't move my car, but also aren't striking me as dumb enough to not have foreseen this eventuality before their van-in-the-driveway plan kick-started.

So, I'm just using the blog to rant, I suppose. I just can't help but feel a bit down about my living situation. I've felt the same way about the last several apartments I've inhabited, in all corners of LA (well, okay, two corners - Hollywood and here in Culver City). Maybe it's just this city. Or, you know, other people. Probably that last one.