Neighbors

One of the best parts of moving to a new neighborhood is getting to know your neighbors. As of this writing, no welcoming committee has rolled out the red carpet or stopped by to introduce themselves to the Budman and I. I realize that is probably only a southern US thing. Truthfully, they all seem like really nice people and I am hopeful we will get to know some of them a bit better. Until that time, it is inevitable that we have given them “nicknames”, so we can tell them apart.

Here is the “lay of the apartment” land, so to speak…

Apartment Overview: We live on the first floor of a four story apartment building. We are, however, technically on the second floor, because there is a first floor at street level (known as the ground floor) and then a basement below that. I know, it was confusing to me at first. Each floor typically has 2 apartments, with the exception of the top floor which has been converted to one apartment.

Mrs. Lachenmann: This is our immediate neighbor that shares the first floor with us. She is really the only neighbor we know by name or know at all for that matter, and she is rather friendly. An older woman (60-ish?), she is single and a German native. We have observed she runs a tight ship at her place, keeping her apartment, balconies, car, and garage neat as a pin. Fortunately, our first interaction with her did not set the stage for things to come: she chastised us we because we should not have been using the communal washer and dryer on Sunday (our second Sunday in Germany). We were apparently violating the apartment rule book (no washing of clothes on Sunday – come again?), but nobody had clued us in to this fact. Not the most pleasant news to receive when you have just moved to a new country, haven’t yet purchased your new France Airbus (a.k.a. German washer/dryer machine), and have no clean clothes to wear. Thankfully, we get along perfectly well, and she is a very quiet and pleasant neighbor.

“Granny”: OK, here is where knowing the neighbors’ names end. “Granny” is our upstairs neighbor that has the apartment directly above ours. Granny is quite a pistol…she is apparently a bit hard of hearing because even we can hear her TV perfectly well. She also has a nice grandfather clock that helps us to keep perfect time . We are not her favorite tenants because apparently our English newspaper kept getting stuffed into her mail slot every morning for the first 3 weeks we were here. And she told me about it….everyday…in German (the first point I have noted as a negative about working in the home office). She also felt the need to communicate with us that our movers were not wiping off their feet when they were bringing the furniture and boxes into the apartment building. Again, in German, but somehow, we did not need a translation. Got it…they’ll need to sweep up when they leave. More to come on that one, I suspicion.

“Bottle Man”: This is “Granny’s” 2nd floor neighbor. Not much is known on this guy, expect that he keeps his extra wine, beer, and water bottles in his garage (that is located directly below our apartment). We only see him when he is bringing down empty bottles and taking up new bottles…hence his nickname. We can understand why he does it as there is no storage at all in these German apartments. Our extra water and diet cokes are stored in our cellar space in the basement.

“New 3rd floor couple”: This is a tag-team nickname. This middle-aged German couple, extremely nice by the way, moved into our building the same week we did. They are still doing remodeling and setting up house, but they are some of the friendliest people we have met. Don’t know their names, as they speak very little English, but a friendly smile is always received from them. As noted from the nickname, they on the third floor…clever, huh?

“Bad Parking Guy”: Only thing we know about the other 3rd floor neighbor is that he parks his Honda SUV in front of the sidewalk leading up to the front door. Not really an issue for us, but Granny does not like it, that much we know. Either Bad Parking Guy does not want to pay for a monthly parking space, or there was not one available for him to buy. Either way, he believes he owns this spot, and there is not a sign to tell him otherwise….

“The Lohkampffs”: Otherwise, known as “the landlords”. They own the apartment we are living in, but bought the “super-spacious, penthouse view on the 4th floor” as Mrs. Lohkampff described it to me on our first and only interaction in 9+ weeks. Now, I don’t want to be a stickler, but can the top floor of a 4-story apartment building technically be a penthouse? Judges, I need a ruling on this one. Only other known facts are that they own their own business (executive recruiting agency), she has parents living in Muenster, their maid comes every day between 9 am and noon, and they travel a ton on business. (OK, I feel a bit like Jimmy Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock’s movie, Rear Window, with nothing better to do but to watch my neighbors. But if we were all honest, we probably all do a bit of this….).

And last, but not least, “the Cave Dwellers”: This is the group term we have applied to the people living in the ground floor and basement apartments. Their apartments only look out onto the back yard, and have no street view. To be perfectly honest, we hardly ever see them, but we know they exist because there are doormats and wreaths on their apartment front doors (we see this as we walk down the basement to store our empty water and coke bottles). The hallways are extremely dark and a bit depressing, a bit “cave-like”. Thus, the name for these tenants…

Perhaps more information that you wanted. One final thought occurs to me…what nicknames have the other tenants given us? The answer to that one could rather interesting….