Behind the Facade

We should have seen it as a sign of things to come when our dog, Sugar, after meeting the downstairs dog for the first time, promptly bit it in the face and left a small hole in it's head. Animal instincts!

We had the first - and I think to this day, only - real and sincere conversation with Guy and Girlfriend the evening after Sugar's attack (warning) on the dog downtairs.  We exchanged pleasantries, offered to pay for the resulting vet bill from the bite, agreed to share the internet, and tried to establish a good impression as we sincerely felt bad about their dog. They seemed nice and normal.

Then, the next week, we began noticing that the nice and normal couple facade actually conceals (barely) a 27(ish)-year-old manchild with an inferiority complex who does not have basic manners or hygiene skills and who somehow conned a normal(ish) girl into dating him, living with him, and cleaning up after him 24/7. Also, the dog would sit at the front window and bark at everything that dared to walk by on the sidewalk in front of our duplex. After a few days, I wanted to go downstairs and bite it in the face.

Our first glimpse behind the facade occurred when we went down into the basement to do some laundry for the first time.
After a big move, you have a lot of stuff to wash. Especially, when you are too lazy to unpack and think of the brilliant idea that if you have to wash everything you own, you can throw everything down the laundry chute and instantly be done unpacking! The basement is large, dark, and has a general, wet, basementy feel. It also has a very distinct smell to it that I think is best described as "urine." There are old towels everywhere that you can tell were once wet, but have since dried and been forgotten about. There are also rugs and bathroom mats that have the same previously-soaked-in-something look. I don't know for sure, but I am about 90% positive that the source of the basement's inviting smell were those towels. When you move to the washer and dryer to load your (unpacked!) clothes, you find an array of cigarette butts, abandoned socks, loose change, and other various objects inside. The socks and change, I get. My question is, how did the cigarette butts get inside the washer and dryer? After lengthy consideration, I decided it could only be one of following two theories:

1. The people downstairs purposely throw cigarettes into every load like they would with a softener sheet to get that lovely Mountain Breeze stale smoke smell in all of their clothes; or
2. Guy is a hoarder and when he puts out a cig, he places it in his pocket for keepsies then forgets to take them out before washing.

Clearly, the only explanation is one of those two well-thought out alternatives. They are the only things that make any sense! We find out months later that I am in fact correct that these are the only two theories that make sense. However, I was mistaken in thinking that the explanation had to make sense. You see, the real explanation is quite simple: We found out Guy goes down to the basement to smoke (the landlord has a no smoking policy), and he discards his cigarette butts into the washer. This is a mystery I almost wished we hadn't solved.

What's sad is that the cigarette butts are only the beginning. Looking back on the last eight months living with the people downstairs, I have come to realize that many of our issues with them center around cleanliness. Admittedly, we ourselves are not the tidiest people on the planet either, so I do want to make it clear that we don't have very high standards to begin with. However, when you are able to gross out a girl who used to Febreeze her own hair in lieu of a proper shower or a guy who once (or twice) peed in his own closet, you deserve to have a barely publicized blog written about you.