“We can say that we exchanged drunks for cockroaches, and such a neighborhood turned out to be more profitable”
For several years we lived in a new building, rented an apartment with a good repair and underfloor heating, with a beautiful gray kitchen and a dressing room instead of a closet. We loved this place, spent summer evenings on the balcony by the grill, invited friends to play board games in the spacious kitchen and watched the sunset. We spent the pandemic in this house, there was not a single green zone around, for three months in a row we walked daily among the stone jungle around the construction site.
When we rented this apartment, there were two houses in the field without a single store, and the parking lot was always half empty. After 4 years, the area has grown to several dozen houses, a couple of bakeries, mini-tapes, many chain stores and pharmacies. A big minus of our microdistrict was the abundance of alcohol markets. In our house, there was Rosal and KB for 2 entrances, and AM also appeared in the neighboring same house. In addition, once every two months, pubs were opened in our house, which did not last long, closed, were replaced by the next ones.
Two huge disadvantages of living in such areas (new and inexpensive) are drunks and dogs. People constantly went over the alcohol norm, there was not a single Friday evening without a message in the LCD group about another broken glass, a fight in the yard or something like that. Once I myself witnessed a yard showdown between a car lady, a bit was used, it was very scary. I was afraid to stay at home alone at night during my partner’s business trips, because teenagers or adult men often walked around the floors, confusing their doors with strangers and trying to get through them. As for dogs, this is my separate pain. People are slowly learning how to clean poop and tie on leashes, but there are still too many who sincerely believe that their dog “does not bite, he is kind.” With all my heart I hate such a boorish attitude of dog owners towards their neighbors. I anxiously waited for the elevator on the first floor, each time waiting for a dog running out of it without a leash and a muzzle.
And at some point, we realized that it couldn’t go on like this anymore. By that time, traffic jams in the microdistrict had reached the point where instead of 20 minutes we began to get to work for almost an hour. The final chord to the search for a new place of residence took place.
Fortunately, a relative of one of our acquaintances decided to rent out his old apartment, once inherited, through “their own”. We moved from the region to the city, from a new apartment to “grandmother’s” renovation, from the 8th floor to the second, from a high-rise building to a “Khrushchev”, from one-room apartment to a two-room apartment. First of all, we made a small repair in agreement with the owner: we re-equipped the bathroom, redid the facades in the kitchen, replaced the furniture, and removed the rubbish from the balcony.
For many, such an exchange will seem like a bad idea, because there is little comfort in such apartments, as well as space, most houses have gas water heaters and no elevators anywhere, the balconies are mostly open, and the houses are old. For me, this decision was also ambiguous, I don’t like gas water heaters, it’s inconvenient to use a small kitchen, old parquet creaks at night under the paws of a cat, there is no way to arrange a storage place on an unglazed balcony. However, the advantages of a new apartment are obvious: the car always stands right under the windows, it’s quiet in the entrance, I haven’t met a single alcoholic in half a year of my life here, they never broke on my door at night, and you don’t have to queue near the elevator, because it’s simply No. Among other things, in this apartment there was an old dishwasher, which was successfully repaired by a talented master in two weeks and 5 thousand rubles (the task was not an easy one, spare parts for these units have not been available for a long time).
Of course, many old people live in our house, who have poor eyesight and imperfectly clean their apartments. For 6 months we met cockroaches twice – in both cases small and lonely. We have traps under the sink in the kitchen, I thoroughly clean the floors with chemicals weekly, so we have nothing to look for them on an ongoing basis. We can say that we exchanged drunks for cockroaches, and such a neighborhood turned out to be more profitable (*laughing emoticon*)
I am satisfied with my choice. Our new apartment isn’t perfect, but it has the pros that outweigh the cons. Now I spend 10 minutes instead of 50 on the road to work, my house is not attacked by alcohol stores, there are 4 grocery stores around, it is almost always quiet in the yard, and we rarely meet neighbors in the front door. I even made friends with a dog from the top floor, its owner (who, by the way, uses a muzzle and a leash) at my request helped us sniff and get to know each other. The metro can now be reached on foot in 15 minutes, and not by car in half an hour, and friends are more willing to come to visit, although now we do not have a wide table in the kitchen for games.
I think that my choice simply won’t suit many, about 5 years ago I myself was ready for any hardships, just to live in a brand new, fresh, clean apartment with a good repair. But after living there for several years, I changed my priorities, and now I can survive the absence of underfloor heating in exchange for a global savings in my time. I wish everyone to find their ideal place 😊
