Member-only story
Hi, Neighbor (Or Maybe Not)!
I don’t know the names of the people who live next door to me.
I live on one side of a semi-attached house. When they moved in three years ago, there were some friendly waves, but no door-knocking introduction.
The new people (a married couple with two apparently twentysomething kids) seemed extremely interested in renovating the property. Boxes of mysterious supplies (all with Chinese lettering) were delivered round the clock. I heard hammering going on from early morning until late at night.
I determined that they worked in the restaurant business, from the industrial-sized packages of empty take-out food containers and sauces moving on and off their property. During the pandemic, I surmised that the restaurant went away as the family car gained Uber stickers. The plastic decals vanished after they purchased two e-bicycles and began making deliveries. I also noticed that their car had been vandalized, perhaps from anti-Asian hatred.
This is not the first time I’m unfamiliar with my immediate neighbors. When I was first married, we lived in a second-floor apartment with another couple living directly above us and a studio apartment with a single lady underneath. I rented the garage from the landlady, however the upstairs neighbor rented the driveway. This led to occasional awkwardness, when I could hear them fighting…
