Love Thy Neighbor

So call me a bad Christian, but I do not love my neighbors. The people below us are SO loud! And they smoke on their balcony, right underneath the girls' bedroom! (Both things - noise and smoking - are against the lease agreement.)

But the real clincher is the gunfire. Shortly after we moved in here, someone shot up one of the townhouses. That was disturbing, but then it was over and life went on. But now, we've had two instances of people shooting guns outside our building in the last month! The first was someone firing shots into the air while threatening someone on the balcony below us. (Yes, directly below where my babies sleep at night.) The second was in front of the other building - on the opposite side from us, but three people were shot. And then yesterday, I was waiting for Colin to get home and I heard a voice on a loudspeaker telling everyone to go inside and that we were inside a police line. So I looked outside and the voice was coming from a police car driving up and down the street while 2 police men with guns and clubs out and a police dog were running down the street. I was SO relieved when Colin came in the door!

This is just not good. I don't want to live in a place where I'm afraid to walk outside in broad daylight because of gun violence. Hence the reason we are beginning to look for a better living situation ... but I also hope that things won't get any worse around here. Overall, I like our place and this building isn't so bad, and it's such a big deal to uproot children -- I'm hoping the increased security will help and we won't have to move. But we're still going to look around anyway!

[Update: I should update you all and let you know that most of the "problem" people in our building appear to be gone. Some I know were evicted, and some I don't know if they moved out on their own or were evicted and I don't care. I'm just glad they're gone! We have some great families in our building and most of the people respect the rules and look out for each other. I'm glad they're cracking down on the jerks who spoil it for everybody. However, we will also probably be moving in February to the Hiawatha Artist Lofts.]