Enter Kirk

It's finally over. Crazy neighbour is gone. Gone, as in, moved out, not... you know. In the two or so years she has lived in the flat above me she attempted to commit suicide three times - that I know of. If you want the full soap opera experience, try dragging a naked, screaming, shivering lady to the car by her legs to have her stomach pumped out after she had overdosed on god knows how many pills for the second time that month. We had some interesting times with her when she got hammered and tried to kick down our door or when she held my hand and cried after I told her to fucking knock on my door the next time she decides to off herself, because it's probably wiser to just, you know, talk. I had all the bipolar fun, from her inviting me over for tea, chatting with me about curtains and work and animals and all sorts of things to her bitching about how disgusting I am for owning cats or whatever.

And the fuck noises. Dear god, the screaming fuck noises every night!

No more random attacks, family members of hers literally breaking down the door, 24/7 weed smoke, her sister's little kids stomping around the house at 7 in the morning, dubsteb parties till the sun comes up, zombie coughing, throwing up all night long, screaming fuck noises... nothing. Peace and quiet. And the place was rented out again literally one or two days after she had left! Can you believe it? I had no idea this area was so popular! I won't lie - I got more than a little paranoid when I noticed somebody was already moving in upstairs. Because things can (and usually will) always get worse.

So I saw this pair dragging bags and boxes and stuff into our house from across the street. Easily in their mid to high fourties, possibly older. She made a face that said, "I haven't enjoyed a man's touch in over a decade and I want the world to know!" I'm not even exaggerating. Have you ever looked at somebody's face and all the love was just gone? Hey, none of us walk through life smiling like idiots all the time, but some people are so done with your shit, they give you the chills when you just look at them. Great, just what I wanted.

You may not know or believe it, but you already own one of these.

They ran back and forth a few times, carrying bags full of clothes, as well as the obligatory blue Ikea plastic bag. It's one of those mythical rules of the universe like the one with the disappearing socks or constantly seeing that thing around your house until you actually fucking need it. Whenever somebody needs to move a lot of stuff from one place or another, there will be one of those massive, indestructible blue Ikea bags. They just materialize right there and then, they're amazing and they inspired D&Ds magical bags of holding and portable black holes. I'm not sure how the guys at Ikea manage to make them magically appear in every household around the globe, but it's damn fine marketing.

A big transporter came up the street and some Eastern-European gentlemen started carrying more stuff upstairs. Wow, they have money for that and move to this shithole? This is bad. People with enough money to let others do their work for them are usually assholes. Entitled, selfish assholes, who are better than everybody else. I can tell, I grew up with filthy rich parents.
One of the boxes had Avon written on it. Great. So Mrs. Frownyface had already reached that stage where she had to give her life some meaning by pyramid-scamming other middle-aged ladies into hoarding shitty cosmetics. She was probably way past the stage of giving up. Everybody is.

Avon. Because your friend/neighbour/aunt guilt-tripped you into buying our shit.

On the plus side, the Avon stage usually happens after the "I think a baby will save this relationship" stage. Besides, that well was probably in the process of drying up, anyway. So probably no toddlers upstairs. Still, I came running to the window whenever I heard children outside, hoping they wouldn't be our new neighbour's creepy offspring.
Lots of rumbling and banging. The furniture guys didn't seem overly proficient at what they were doing. "Eez too narrow", I heard one of them say. Surprisingly enough, there was no argument, no fighting. My father would have blown the fuck up on these guys, as entitled rich people do. Maybe they were just tired.

And then it went quiet. They were done moving in, the van drove off and there was nothing but silence. Nobody talking, arguing, stomping around upstairs, nobody walking through the corridor, sniffing, proclaiming, "Damn, I think they have cats/snakes/lizards/dead bodies down here!" And yes, we've been accused of hiding a decomposing corpse in our flat when the crazy lady had one of her bad days. Which is stupid, we keep the rotting bodies of our enemies on display right on the porch, as is the Viking tradition.

That'll teach them to deliver stupid 25% off pizza coupons! It's 50% or fuck off!

Later that day we decided to go out for some grocery shopping and that's when we ran into middle-aged guy and two teenagers. "Oh hi, I just moved in upstairs", he proclaimed as he shook my hand. Hang on a second. I just moved in? Singular? "Hope I wasn't too loud. Don't worry, I'll be quiet." The kids didn't say anything, as they were both "I'm gonna roll my eyes and hope for the ground to swallow me until my dad stops being a pussy in front of this creepy German" years old. "Don't worry about them, they don't live with me."
Okay. Wow. And just like that the guy had already apologized to me three times while all I ever managed to say was hello. And then I connected the dots as I went on my way to the shop.

I'm mostly talking out of my ass, because I've been watching these guys too much.

The lady who helped him move his shit must have been his brand new ex, who just kicked him out. She helped him shift his stuff, which could mean he fucked up so hard, she couldn't wait to get rid of him. But I think it's more likely that she ended the relationship and felt guilty enough about it to help him move his shit. And judging by how the guy introduced himself to me, it's reasonable to assume she has crushed a fair amount of his ego. I mean, I don't usually move in to a place and go all, "Hi, I'm so sorry you heard furniture noises, these kids are just visiting!" Nice of mommy to let the kids see him, ease them into the whole breakup thing. Get some space, see how they feel about one another after they had some time to think. While she's really just filing for divorce right the fuck now. In a nutshell, the new dude living upstairs is this guy:

So that's why we can hear him go BRRRRRMMMM around bedtime every night!

The wife left him, the kids are embarrassed of him, he lives in a crappy house with people almost two decades younger than him - it's a midlife crisis waiting to happen. And now we wait and find out whether he's the next neighbour I'll find after a suicide attempt or whether he'll knock on our door in his underwear at 3am one day to complain about the noise, only to park his ass on our sofa, play Halo and listen to a best of album of The Who until the sun comes up. I'm hoping for a the latter. I also hope he has a good sense of humour if he ever decides to look me up on Facebook and finds this blog. Please don't be a crazy axe-murderer! A couple years of gritty reality drama were exciting, but I'd like to go back to when my life was a cheesy 90s white trash sitcom, please.