The landlord left a message on Monday night last week. We were home when he called, but it was the same time as the 24 season finale and no way in hell was I going to answer the phone during those two hours. I called him back late the next day and he just wanted to ask what was up with us because our lease is ending in July and he couldn't remember why we had changed the ending date. Despite a degree from MIT and a fortune made in the antique business, he doesn't come across as the brightest bulb in the box sometimes. Anyway, I reminded him that yes, we were planning on moving out of the apartment and out of Boston (Woo-Hoo!) to relocate to New York (double Woo-Hoo!). He asked if he could go ahead and list the apartment with the brokers he uses and I said no problem. My wife differed with the "no problem" opinion. She was freaked because the place wasn't clean. First of all, it looked fine. Second of all, I still can't figure out why she would care what the place looks like to people who might be moving in after we are gone. I mean, people are coming to look at our apartment, we're not holding interviews for new friends. I guess it's a girl thing. She told me I should have told him to wait to list it so we would have more time to clean up and blah blah blah and she wasn't ready to have people start showing up to look at the place already. I told her not to worry about it so much. It wasn't even June yet, I told her, so no way would people be looking for August 1st already, and anyway they have to give us 24-hour notice to come show the place. She pretty much just gave me the old "you just wait and see" look.
Boy was I eating crow the next day. I got home form work at about 3:30 and there were three messages on the machine from different brokers (or as I like to call them, scum sucking leaches) wanting to come over and show the place. And every call, without exception, had them asking to show the place at a time that was about 10 or 15 minutes after their phone call. I was about to start calling them back to explain the 24-hour notice rule when another one called, "Hi this is (so and so) from Crescent Realty and I have a guy in my office and want to swing by to show him your apartment."
Holy shit I couldn't believe these damn people. I explained to him that I wouldn't be letting people show the place with any less than a 24-hour notice, and something completely unexpected of a Bostonian happened. He apologized. No trying to talk me into it or giving me a hard time, he just apologized and tried to figure out when he could show the place. I ended up telling him to go ahead and bring the guy over (the wife wasn't home to freak about how the place looked) since he had somebody there, but that from now on I would be sticking to my "guns," as it were. He turned out to be this really sweet old guy and when he showed up he apologized again and thanked me many times for letting him show the place and was all around really nice about it.
So the guy looking at the place is the real point of this story. I was telling him about the place - the crappy laundry machines, the loud neighbors, the water damage in the ceiling/wall over the fridge, but great water pressure and hardwood floors and decorative fireplaces - and he said the heartiest thing.
There is a single-level coach house connected to the back of our building and our back window (we're on the first floor) looks directly out onto their little patio, and it is a married couple that lives there. Anyway, I was kind of telling him a little bit about them since you can't help but see them a lot if you want to have your window open. I mentioned that the wife will talk to you but the husband comes across as really antisocial. This is what he said:
"That's OK, I don't plan on talking to the neighbors anyway."
That, in a nutshell, represents exactly why I hate living in Boston. This town is full of that attitude. No desire to know your neighbors. It's not even that people here are shy, which I secretly always hoped that's what it was really all about. It is actually a conscious decision to not be friendly. Man, I am so happy we're finally leaving.
Six weeks to go, six weeks to go....
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Do you really think New York will be that different? I don't NY or Boston, but it seems that the bigger the city, the more likely you are to have this problem. I experienced the same thing when my wife and I lived in downtown Atlanta, and I'll admit it - I didn't take the time to get to know my neighbors, either. Of course, early on when we were staying there we heard some shouting about some rather unsavory things that might have reinforced that (non) practice.
OTOH, after moving to Charlottesville, I felt much more comfortable getting to know my neighbors. I even helped my next-door neighbor move (she chose to move down two flights so that she wouldn't have to climb as many stairs anymore - given her age, it seemed like a good decision).
Do you have good reason to think NY will be better or is the uncharacteristic optimism on your part? :)
I think the whole size (population)of a city being related to the friendliness factor (big city = mean/cold, little town = friendly/accepting) is a myth. Boston certainly reinforces my opinion on that. Boston, despite what the people here like to think, is not a that big of a city (not even in the top twenty in population in U.S.). Looking at the last two places I lived, Seattle, which is roughly the same size as Boston (about half a million) is a lot friendlier and tons more polite than Boston. And Chicago, which is more than 5 times the size, is friendlier than both of them. Seattle has Chicago beat in politness (which is very different), but in genuine friendliness I'd put Chicago up against any place. In both those cities I always got to know several of the people who lived in my buildings, and you always said hello to them when passing in the lobby, never just acting like there is no one else in the room, which is the common practice here.
I'm certainly not unfamilier with New York, I know the city quite well, and I find it to be a much friendlier place than here, New York's reputation for the opposite is somewhat undeserved. Most of my friends in New York seem to know a lot of their neighbors well enough to at least say hello and even chat with each other. (NYers, feel free to respond if you think that's not true)
New York is the kind of place that you can strike up conversations in bars or the subway (not everyday mind you, I know the subway is not a book club or anything, but I've seen it happen there a hell of a lot more than Boston).
So yes, I do think it will be different in New York.
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