Sitting here trying to chill on the couch at 10am on a Saturday. Over the back fence is a dog that barks constantly whenever it’s left unattended, and some toddler in a nearby apartment block has been throwing a screaming tantrum for the last 15 minutes, which also happens regularly. How’s the serenity?
Edit: The reference
I love being in the city.
I love being in the middle of nowhere.
I hate the middle ground. The suburbs/exurbs combine the worst features of urban and rural living. Everyone is spread out enough to be car dependent, but still close enough to be in each other’s way.
I’m technically in the suburbs - low/medium density housing - but it’s fairly close to the city and I can walk to what they’d call in the UK the High Street, so I could easily get by without a car. It’s pretty sweet, just a bit noisy at times. I’m also under the flight path for the city’s airport. Swings and roundabouts, I guess.
Agreed. Have lived in the suburbs, in the hip part of town, and now in the country. I can easily do the city or country, suburbs, hell no, never again.
I agree but I live in a technical suburb at the end of a transit line because its more affordable. would love to live in a high rise. not big on living in rural areas but its nice for a getaway.
If you’re doing it because of money, that’s completely fine in my book. No issues.
However I have friends who went to the suburbs to “get away from the city”, to “have a rural life”, and “small town living”. All sounds great except they bought a McMansion in a subdivision with an overbearing HOA, there is no small town except for the auto mile and big box stores 10 miles away, they have to drive everywhere, and the closest thing to nature is the artificial lake in the center of the complex. These types of people drive me up the wall.
As someone who has both lived urban and rural, it’s neither, it’s the worst of both worlds, and it’s the worst for the environment and planet. It’s all purely because they want a single family home but also don’t want to give up amenities of the city. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.
I completely get it because I pretty much feel this way. Where im at im still at the end of the metro line and there are actually a fair amount of 4 over 2 type condos but there are also single family homes. I live in a condo. So it is just sorta technically suburbs as its outside the city. Sorta sucks that it costs so much to live in real downtown. Part of it I think is the 6 over 2 are sorta the lowest cost per square foot while being land efficient. Like the elevator in my building is pneumatic but over a certain height that kind won’t work.
I really love that type of construction, it is super efficient. People think of big skyscrapers but even just 2 units can be very efficient!
At one pointed I rented a unit in a six flat and my dream but I could never swing it was to own a multiflat. High flying dream was to actually be able to get one built like a zigarat so every level had small yards. It is super efficient but I would still love to be in a high rise but mostly just to be in the heart of transit and to have all the density so everything you can think of is close by. Would also love if my city banned cars from the downtown area. It has such an obvious area that its kinda pointless to have traffic in.
About 4x a year, my neighbor watches the barkiest dog. The dog also has a companion who is fine if alone. But barky when they are together. We survive by calling them “borkarinos”, making silly borks, and translating. “Bork Bork bork! I see a dog I see a dog I see a dog SQUIRREL “
Edit: When I searched for ‘Far Side dog translator’, one of the first results was this page.
Had Professor Schwartzman taken some more time to study canine behavior, perhaps the comic strip’s protagonist would’ve realized the logical (almost obvious) answer that dog barks mean exactly what the decoder expertly translates them as.
lol. Very much like that.
Several people in the neighborhood have dogs and that’s fine except the direct neighbors have a dog. Someone walking nearby? Bark bark bark! Mail? Bark bark bark! The neighbors (us) using the front door in any way? Bark bark barkbark!!!
It was worse before covid though. They finally trained it some when they had to be home with the fucker. Back then it literally barked at all hours for 15 to 30 minutes at a go. I dream of throwing them into low earth orbit somedays.
In my former marital life we had a labrador that would only bark when people came through the front gate. I started referring to him as our ‘proximity alarm’, and after he died it annoyed me that people could enter the property un-barked at. Some years later, I was dating a woman that had a labrador, and I’d occasionally set her off by saying excitedly “who’s at the gate?”. “Don’t troll my dog” she’d say. Good times.
At least I’ll always know when somethings being delivered to us, because fucking bark barkbarkbark!
At least they keep the dog inside at night now. That was the absolute worse. At night he’d be set off by idk fucking gremlins or something.
Is gremlins fucking a problem around your parts? Around here it’s possums fucking that make a real racket.
Nah, gremlins because there’s no auditory source for why he was being set off at night. I have…too good of hearing (stupid spider spinning a web and going tik tik tik) but at night he’d just go. Probably because he was put outside all day! I’m happy for him he’s inside and hopefully getting more attention.
Neighbors I still want to yeet into low earth orbit.
Heavy machinery starts revving up around 5am (earlier in the summer sometimes). Fireworks to scare the crows (and sometimes boar and bears) away popping off. Constant fieldwork all day, sometimes mechanized, on 2 sides of me, just occasionally on the other two. Loudspeaker announcement system is going off at least thrice a day, usually at 07:30, 16:30, and 17:00 (end-of-day song). Dogs barking at some other creatures and occasional rooster sounds.
Life in ex-/sub-urban Japan (I’m kinda fairly on the border of suburbia, but a portion of these are still true in actual suburbia with announcements, hearing machinery, etc.)
Blimey! I guess I shouldn’t complain. :)
I’m on 250 acres of trees. My neighbor, also 250 acres. It’s glorious.
Neighbor just flipped on his flood lights and cranked up the snow blower. Could be worse I guess.
Why are they doing that at night?!
They don’t have a concept of time. I can understand wanting to start snow removal early.
