PIANO MEN
Highly sensitive people. That’s a book title: The Highly Sensitive Person. These folks are bugged by eyeglasses that rub their temples; pillows that don’t fluff out enough; shoes that don’t breathe well. Basically, they’re like Woody Allen but not as funny or famous.
Cleveland has its share. These highly sensitive people shouldn’t live in apartment buildings.
When I lived in an apartment, I thought the guy upstairs was dropping weights all day. It was probably Kleenex. I bailed in three weeks.
In my real estate leases, I put an addendum: “If you’re a party animal, party elsewhere.”
Doesn’t work.
For example, I have a couple piano-playing renters. Lou, he plays classical all day. That’s OK. But then there’s Ragtime — not so well-loved. Ragtime’s neighbor periodically calls the cops and writes me letters about “headache-inducing, thundering piano music.”
I told Ragtime to go electric — get some headphones and play for himself. And I told the highly sensitive neighbor, he could move out and I’d give him his security deposit back.
He didn’t move. He just kept writing. He could crank it: “Right now I’m hearing piano music at decibel levels designed to throw the planet out of orbit . . . No more piano music!”
He liked to write more than he liked packing.
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1 of 2 posts for 7/29/09. Please see post below too.
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Yiddishe Cup concert: Wade Oval, University Circle, Cleveland.
6 p.m. Wed., April 5
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Watch a new YouTube video of Yiddishe Cup playing the blue klez classic “Joe and Paul.”
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Read a review of the CD Klezmer Guy, Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, 7/15/09, by Lee Chottiner.
3 comments
When I was single and living in an apartment, I came home at 10:30 PM to extremely loud music from the apartment below me. No problem, I simply banged on the floor and yelled to please turn it down. In response the tenant cranked it up some more. I stomped with my foot once more and that got his attention. He turned off the music and began screaming and cursing me through the walls. Then it got quiet and he started banging with a stick or pole on his ceiling (my floor). The creepy thing was he would follow me from room to room with this stick wherever I went.
Feeling quite petrified, I made a phone call to my friend Ollie who lived down the street. Ollie was a Vietnam vet and came at once with a loaded revolver. He got me out of the apartment safely, and I stayed at his house the rest of the night.
The following morning I contacted the landlord, who let me know that this man was the boyfriend of the tenant and was not supposed to be there. In fact, he was violating his parole. When I got back to the apartment, the police were there and led him away in handcuffs. He gave me a rather dirty look.
What did you bale? Hay?
Thanks for the correction, Teddy. Just changed “baled” to “bailed.”
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