I lived in a house and then a townhouse I owned for nearly a decade. Then I sold them because I got moved around for work and frankly was tired of being a homeowner. Owning a home is a big pain in the ass. These two houses had a number of major issues. I dropped so much freaking coin to get them ready to sell. I think I essentially lost money on one and made some money on the other.

So then I got back into apartment living to shorten my commute and because after two of my eternal doggy buddies commuted to Doggy Valhalla I only had one small troublemaking shoebox dog and could get away with a small one bedroom closet.

There are a great deal of pros with this sort of life:

1) If something breaks, I don’t care, because I don’t have to fix it.

2) Significantly less square footage to clean.

3) Never have to search for where said troublemaking dog is hiding because the place is so small you can always hear her snoring and determine her location by ear (she has a smash face).

4) I have found that owning less stuff is a pro for me. My biggest source of hoarding are books and blu rays. Boo hoo. It’s gonna be a sad day for me when I buy a house again and have to own more than one couch.

5) When the ghosts come to haunt my dreams and tell me to burn things there’s only one bedroom so they’re in and out real quick.

6) Cooking smells last for days, which works for me because I take my cooking seriously. Who doesn’t want their dive apartment smelling like Spanish jamon for days on end?

7) You only have to drag your laundry twelve feet instead of up and down two flights of stairs.

8) I don’t care what any financial goon says to you, renting may have once been way, way more expensive than owning. I think this was true for our parents’ generation. I don’t much think so anymore. Granted, I don’t rent an expensive place, but I put out way, way less coin in a year into renting than I ever did into owning.

Now the bizarre cons:

1) Having to once again submit myself to the noises and antics of neighbors who will yell at one another, have party now and then, conduct a demon ritual with friends and fellow acolytes, and so on. I can sometimes hear all this inside the apartment. It bugs me and my doggy. Fortunately this is solved via headphones or the ever tasty internet white noise generator which I frequently employed when I lived overseas recently and the walls were made of cheap plaster made in Pakistan.

2) Do you like pot? It’s okay if you do. But boy you gotta keep that smell shit inside your apartment. Cigarette smoke lasts about twelve seconds. Pot smell and smoke lasts 27 years. Trust me, I ride the subway and can confirm this. They need to put a towel under their door or something. Like I said I kind of rent on the cheap so management doesn’t care. And I live in a progressive jurisdiction where a large amount of crime is essentially tolerated because nobody wants to offend anybody, do we? I’ve got not beef with the smoking pot, I’d fucking legalize every drug on the planet. Just keep it out of my apartment.

3) The incredibly bizarre experience of elderly women and homosexual men brazenly hitting on me at 1am on a Saturday morning when my dog is using the bathroom in the courtyard. Again, all good with me about anybody’s life choice, just not my thing. Plus, if hitting on people at 1am in an apartment courtyard was acceptable (among many other behaviors) then I suspect dating wouldn’t be so difficult for me.

4) The dudes who buy and have delivered their snotty higher than thou newspapers, decorate the front step with them, and then don’t collect them until 11am. I’m usually the first tenant out the door with my dog for bathroom. I gotta sweep this pile of shit aside like my foot is a broom. It’s my first act of the day, or, I guess second after snaring my dog and carrying her down the stairs (her back is gone). Even my own dear mother has stopped getting a paper newspaper except but once a week. And daily newspapers have been a religion in my family for generations. Who does it daily anymore, except as a statement of political support? It’s the new woke. “You do read the paper newspaper, every day, don’t you?” [looks intently at total stranger while fingering official woke dagger in pocket]

5) I truly, truly, truly miss having a full kitchen to cook in. I have a micro kitchen. Do you see my sad face? This is my sad face.

6) My cheap ass apartment has a hot water heater manufactured in Yugoslavia in 1984. It does not possess the capacity to fill the bathtub to full capacity. Do you know how much I miss a good hot bath after an outside winter workout? Sigh.

7) I wish I knew my neighbors, at all. I’m rewatching Poirot and at least as depicted 1935 apartment living everybody is all polite and knows one another and watches out for another. I’m an insular, quiet weirdo who my neighbors probably thinks builds bone pyramids in my closet. But even when I try and greet people, say nice things the usual response is dead silence. This was even before covid. Now people avoid each other like there’s a pandemic going on. It makes the building feel so cold and empty.

8) My cheap ass apartment has no balcony and no floor length windows. So my doggy can’t look outside and watch the world go by. And I can’t sit on the balcony in the spring or fall and smoke me a rare cigar and scotch and just exist. I miss my decks and backyards.

That is all. This will be my last apartment.

PS, if you’ve read this far, I thank you. But also wonder what’s wrong with you? I mean, I know there’s a lot wrong with me. But why are you here? I’m so, so sorry that you’re hear. Let me help you! With a virtual pandemic hug. To get your free hug, kindly send via international wire transfer, $500 to:

The Arcturus Project – Virtual Hug Project

C/O Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation

1794 Aguiyi Ironsi Street

Abuja 900001, Nigeria