I was 19, and after moving out of my parents just to be kicked out (a story for another time, that one is crazy, let me tell ya) and having to move back in with my parents overnight, and having two apartments taken out from under me, I finally found a place in the town over! It was in the paper, $450 a month. I called and the woman said “ yes it’s available but if it’s just you, I do have the space above it for rent too and it’s only $350 a month, everything included.” That was a steal! I jumped on it and met up with her the next day. It was a small attic space but it had a full kitchen and bathroom and the tiniest space ever that I turned into a “bedroom”. And I mean literally, a full mattress fit very snuggly in the retouching 3 of 4 walls.
I was ecstatic!
This dirty little place was all mine. Packing all my stuff up 20 stairs was no fun, but I lived there for 5 years before needing to pack it all back out!
Now this house is right on one of the busiest intersections of that town. I saw my fair share of accidents, police pullovers, a drug bust a crossed the street, and many drunk walking home yelling or singing in the middle of the night. But being right on the main drag, it was also very easy to know where I lived, so I also had a couple stalkers… also a story for another time. (I know… the suspense right? Haha)
Now to the story you came for, but first let me show you the layout so you can get a visual!
Alright so not that you have the jist of the layout, I can continue.
For a few days when I would get home I would notice a rotten meat smell (you can see where this is going).
I checked my fridge and threw out all the meat, but I kept smelling it off and on, and I could smell it outside too, so I thought,
“ Well it must be the dumpster.”
I walked buy it a couple times a day to get to and from my car.
Well here comes the weekend and I wake up the smell being absolutely horrid. I came to the realization that this smell was coming from the house. It was the worst in my small bedroom space, which in that picture above, is right above the house’s entryway.
Let me also note here that I could hear just about everything up there, I knew when the neighbor was home, when he left, and I could hear his bouts of anger tantrums. (Throwing things, yelling, slamming doors. It happens often.
And this guy hadn’t left or made a sound in over a week.
So putting two and two together, I immediately assumed that what I was smelling must be his dead body. I called my mom to ask her opinion. She asked if I had knocked on his door. Well my answer to that was a NO. That guy seemed very unstable and not exactly the type of person I want to go check on. But I walked down my steps, across the front of the house with my head down, anxiety ridden, and I walk down the heavily overgrown drive up to the side door. (This was his main door.)
I knocked…
Nothing happened.
I knocked again way louder this time… nothing.
And I did again as loudly as possible.
Not a single sound.
I call my mom back and told her and she gave me the number to the police station where I could make a phone call to have someone go check on the guy.
So I call, my voice shaking uncontrollably, I apologized to the woman on the other end as I explained the situation. She said, it’s ok, I’m sending two offices over and they will check it out, everything will be alright. She asked if I was ok, I said yes, I don’t know why I’m so shaky.
She assured me it was a normal response given what was going on.
Well about 10 minutes later I hear banging in the door down stairs. I get a call back from the lady I spoke with and she said one of the officers wants me to come down and talk. I run down the steps, I’m greeted by a very nice man, who said I’m sorry but, things don’t seem too well. He brought me up to the front where he showed me the front windows.
Now remember I said I had my head down? Well if I had looked up I’d have seen the horror I was now looking at.
Hundreds… and I mean literal hundreds of flies, completely covering the windows….
I felt sick.
All I could think was, “I’ve been breathing in this mans dead body for days”…
And it was the middle of summer so the stench on top of the heat and humidity, I was literally nauseated all day with bad headaches.
The officers went in the house, looked around and came up to my apartment to tell me that thankfully no one was dead!
The guy was out of town and their freezer full of meat (directly below my bedroom) went out. So yes I was smelling death but not my neighbor!
Phew! Right?!
Well let’s just say, that smell didn’t leave for about a month. The guy and a buddy came back, emptied the house of the freezer and meat, but I know for certain that they used airwick Hawaiian breeze air freshener to try and cover the scent. Let me tell you that every. Single. Time. That I smell that scent, I want to vomit.
So good note, no one died! But that was for sure an experience I will never forget!
If you guys have any crazy first apartment stories to share, I’d love to hear them!
~A
Ink & Embers 