The devil you know

It's crap weather here today so I indulged myself by sleeping in an extra hour. While sleeping I thought I heard kids hollering and playing but knew it couldn't be from outside because of it puking rain. I later chalked it up to perhaps dreaming it but later when my MIL came by she told us we're getting new neighbors in the empty apartment under us. A ha! That must be what I heard and they evidently have a passle of kids.

I was right. They do have a passle of kids. My new neighbors are my old neighbors - the same people who moved out a couple months ago. They'd moved to a house about 5 or so miles outside of the city and it was supposed to be the perfect arrangement for them - plenty of room for their zillion kids, a big yard, no traffic, etc. And I guess it was perfect except for the plague of field rats that have invaded the house and yard and the leaking roof. Their landlord was supposed to take care of this but has done nothing and they've had enough and are moving back here to their old apartment. Sounds bad but it sounds better to me than the Wobau possibly renting to loud university students.

They've got seven kids - five of them being toddler to grade school age - and those kids are a lively bunch. Lots of crying, lots of playing, lots of hollering just like kids do. And with all the noise they make they still don't bother me like the Loud family living above me. Come 8pm it's quiet down there and with the exception of a child waking up and crying once in a while during the night, I hear nary a peep from them. Even during the day when they get a little wild and I hear the strained voices of the parents hollering "Stop it!" it's not as bad as one time hearing Herr Loud taking a crap. Double that when the crap taking is occuring at 4:30am.

And speaking of crap taking (just call me Mrs. Smooth Segue), a lady who lives two down from our building ran into my MIL and said "You know last week I had to take my little dog out during the night. It was well after 4am and when I passed your building I heard the most horrible, frightning scream coming from the third floor. Every light was blazing in that apartment there and the screaming sounded like a wounded animal. It scared me to death. For a moment it reminded me of some sort of devil worship thing".

Try having a front row seat, sister.