The Problem With Unit C

Below us, Unit C is empty. My TV-blasting downstairs neighbors moved out!

The quiet is astounding; at night and in the early morning everything is still and we can hear the pounding of the surf. If you've ever camped at the beach or by a stream, or lived there, you know how wonderful the sounds of natural, moving bodies of water are. You sleep better, you breathe better, you just feel so alive.

I was happily enjoying the emptiness of Unit C this week, till Thursday, when I came home from work intending to read the last few chapters of a novel and maybe even take a nap before D.D. was to arrive home.
No such luck - a work van was parked in my parking spot, and there was a tremendous amount of banging, slamming, thumping and yelling going on downstairs. Several workers were down there. Not only that, my apartment was full of fumes and vapors - they were refinishing the hardwood floors downstairs.

I was furious, not with the workers, but with the leasing company, for not warning us this work was going to happen.
We live in old military housing, and even though the units are separate, it's almost like you live with your neighbors, because you can hear and smell everything from the other apartment. Their ceiling/our floor seems to have no insulation in it, and there's a big empty wall space between our wall heater and theirs, which is why I used to enjoy saying, "Carol Ann... Carol Annnnnn...." into the heater in a baby voice like that little lady's in Poltergeist. (I was hoping she would hear it and think I was a ghost. ) Anyhow, if they would have warned us, we could have stayed at a hotel or with friends. I'm extremely fearful of toxic chemicals - I use only natural house cleaning supplies, almost all the food I eat is organic, and basically I'm convinced that we're all going to die soon from a combination of global warming and cumulative chemical poisoning!

The only good thing was that the workers opened all the blinds so I was finally able to see into Unit C, for the first time ever.
The old downstairs neighbors ALWAYS kept their blinds closed. I only saw in once, and that was just a peek, when the mailman delivered their mail to our box and I went downstairs to hand it to them. All I could see before the guy shut the door was a giant elliptical exercise machine that took up half their living room. One time Carol Ann and the guy came up to our place to give us a bottle of wine, and she said, "You have such a beautiful place!" I thanked her, but inside I was very startled. I mean, we have the exact same apartment. Since then, I've always wondered what was wrong with their unit.
Well now I know! There's nothing different; empty, It looks exactly like ours did empty! I think her place would have looked better to her without an ELLIPTICAL MACHINE and a huge ugly television in EVERY room.

Anyhow, I took these pictures through the windows right after the floors had been done. They (floors) look great. Glad I'm shaving years off my life and MUTATING MY EGGS by breathing in the varnish...and I'm scared to think: Now who will move in?