Apartment living is an intimate affair

This summer I posted this Top Ten list on apartment living. I have now had a good three months in our apartment and decided to update the list.

UPDATED: Top 10 things you worry about when living in an apartment again after 18 years:

10. UPS will drop a large, heavy package at the clubhouse for you and you'll have to schlep it up three flights of stairs. (And since you are still working on your stamina, you will have to stop for a break at every landing.)

9. The balcony you have been asked not to use, because it is unsafe, will collapse and kill the quiet, pot-smoking neighbors downstairs and someone who actually gives a crap about noise will move in.

8. The lathe your spouse is using in your bedroom will vibrate the floor so much the downstairs neighbor's ceiling fan will fall and crush them. (Then again, if the balcony hasn't killed them yet, they probably won't care because they are always high.)

7. Your new downstairs neighbors will channel Michael Keaton from Pacific Heights. (This might not be a bad thing- then they couldn't complain because all their construction projects would drown our noise out.)

6. You will die one day and since you haven't made any lasting impressions, no one will find you for weeks- either your dog eats you, or you don't get your deposit back. (This one stays on the list.)

5. Birds that come to feast from the bird feeders you put on the balcony (without getting permission from management)will get through the screen door, panic, and bad things will happen.  

4. You'll run out of snacks during your late-night movie and when you leave to stock up it will set off a community-wide chain reaction of dog barking that won't stop for hours.

3. While walking the dog through the courtyard, you run into the neighbor who lives in the building across from you and was making love with their shades open last night. You try not to make eye contact and keep from blushing.

2. You have guests and the air mattress they sleep on (because you no longer have a guest room) leaks air all night until the excess plastic has encased and suffocated them. Carrying bodies down three flights of stairs is not an option.

1.You forgot to get any of your holiday decorations out of storage and now have to purchase things that have no sentimental value and make you hate Christmas even more than usual.