What's it like where you live? What kind of people live in your building or neighborhood? Are they kinda like you and you coexist nicely, or do you find yourself an oddity? Is it particularly hard for you to live among younger people?


The reason I'm asking is because once again, my walls are vibrating, my ears are ringing from the bass of the "music" which is playing next door, and I am getting more and more pissed off by the minute. Thak has allready pounded on the wall twice, and will be going over there in uniform in just a minute since the wall shaker is the 18-year-old Private and his wife, who live in the flat next door. What's more disgusting is that they have an 8 month old baby, and they still play that bass so loud! I don't know about their kid, but stuff like that freaks Erin out and always has, so James Taylor, Chet Baker, and Willy Nelson were the order of the day when she was that age... People who don't accomodate their kids really disgust me. Living next door, I just want to run over there and bitch slap them.

I have such a problem with the fact that they don't separate NCOs (Sergeants) from the lower enlisted soldiers when assigning housing. I mean, it does not suprise me that these 18 and 19 year old kids whom we live among live like this. It does not suprise me that they look at us like we're crazy when we tell them their music is too loud, that it's unacceptable to leave their trash cans laying about, and other really common sense things which occur to those of us who are more mature, but not those who are younger.... It is to be expected that they want to live it up since this is probably the first time they've ever been away from their parents. However, it is not mine nor Thak's, and we do not appreciate living amid Animal House, which is inevitably what it's going to be like when you live among Privates.

Thak is the only NCO in our building, and actually, the only one on this street, I think... That makes our lives hell since he's not the type to make other people's lives hell. It also puts our entire family under the microscope because we're "the Sergeant's family" and people watch us. If our flat is cluttered, we can't leave our door open (and just leave screen door closed) where people can see in because that would reduce their respect for Thak's rank, and if he ever did need to go and put them in their place, he'd be unsuccessful since his respect had been comprimised by the messy flat (it's not usually messy, but when it is, we hide it hardcore...) It is a pain in the ass to live among these people. Our building briefly had really awesome people, with two well educates Corporals living right next door, our wonderful friends Johnathan and Tonya living downstairs, and the world's quietest Private First-Class occupying the flat adjacent Johnathan and Tonya. It was good times... it lasted a week. Now the Corporals have moved out, J and T have moved to a different housing area since their flat got broken into, and they've all been replaced by horrible people. Hopefully we get out of here soon, and our new building will have only NCOs in it, and if not NCOs, then at least people who live nicely like we do.

You know, it just makes me feel so old to always be yelling at these other women (Well.... more accurately, girls) to turn their music down, pick up their areas, and park their cars in the right places. It makes me feel like somebody's mother.... I thought I wasn't old yet!! LOL 24 is too young to be an old lady...

He's worth it.

I'm currently in a 12 story rental with a half dozen apartments on each floor. For the most part it's pretty friendly people, and even though I haven't really made the effort to get to know anyone in my building the three years I've lived here, the small talk on the elevator and in the entrace is generally very pleasant. My floor is generally quiet compared to others in the building. There is frequent turnover of folks given the amount of moving you see at the beginning/end of every month. I think this is a place that people stay a short time, while they are transitioning elsewhere, although there is a lovely elderly woman with a bicycle on the first floor who appears to have lived here for years and years.

It's an extremely diverse neighbourhood that is bordered by the University of Toronto to the south, the tremendously upscale Yorkville to the east and Koreatown to the west. We're a stones throw to Little Italy (which has been abandoned by the Italians and replaced by trendy upscale bars/restaurants and the Portuguese), and Chinatown.

You can get pretty much any ethnic cuisine under the sun you can imagine on the main commercial strip, although we seem to have much more sushi places than any other neighbourhood in TO. We have students, mansions, soup kitches, churches of all kinds, old fashion boarding houses, group homes, many small dog parks, frat houses, families, singles, couples, upscale homes, low income housing, expensive private schools, vocational institutes, and people of all colors and sizes here.

This is the neighborhood that managed to successfully battle Starbucks and save a locally owned coffee shop. I can describe all the homeless that live on the main street and they have always appeared to exist in this eco-system where many of them are provided for by the shopkeepers.

We have one of the very few small mom and pop hardware stores left in the downtown core.

It was once a Hungarian neighbourhood and there is only one restaurant that remains. It serves a meat platter for four people with a half dozen different items including veal, sausage or pork that is a foot high and held together by knives pressed into the top of the stack. My former roommate used to pick up items at the Hungarian deli for her mother before it closed down. I always wondered why Hungarian chocolate had a picture of a cow holding a shovel on it's packaging. I'm not sure where the Hungarian community went to.

There was a large building that was just a burnt out husk filled with urban legends surrounding why such a huge potentially profitable storefront has remained empty for over twenty years. Recently renovations began on it and a used bookstore will open there. Apparently the former owner, an eccentric elderly Hungarian woman recently passed away.

I've very rarely been told to take off my rollerblades in the local shops. I think it might be the fact that I've been rolling into the same places for a decade now and it's what they are accustomed to.

There is a small grocery store that closed down last week that prided itself with ALWAYS being open (except for the black out a couple of years ago) for the last twenty years or so... to the point where there are no locks on the doors.

I always flirt with the girls at the post office at the back of the drug store.

My favourite place to eat for most of the time I was here is a Montreal style deli that is run by a family consisting of 28 kids, most of whom were adopted from third world contries. They have smoked meat, montreal bagels, fresh OJ, sour pickles and my favourite meal there is a large plate of Poutine with shredded smoked meat on top.

We have two of the best ice cream places in town that serves vastly different kinds of hand-made, gourmet Ice Cream. It's usually a toss-up between a scoop of Roasted Marshmallow at the place inside the Jewish Community Centre, or Birthday Cake flavour at the one operating out of a window of a house.

I've lived here for ten years and I have loved every minute of it and have a very hard time seeing myself living anywhere else.

At one glorious point, all of my closest friends lived in this neighbourhood. All of them moved away when they got married and couldn't afford to buy here. One of my best friends left a month ago after purchasing a fixer-uper and proposing to his longtime girlfriend.



In 25 days I take possession of my stacked townhome condo located uptown where there is much less diversity in terms of the cultural and socio-economic range of people I will encounter on a daily basis.

Sam, I think you might live in my cousin's old building. The way you discribe it is the same as she discribed the place she lived when she was a professor at University of Toronto a couple years ago. I know for a fact that it is in the same area, though. The discriptions match too closely not to be. Very cool!

I've lived a lot of places all over the world.
I currently live in a house, on a cul de sac, in an established middle class residential neighborhood. We have a neighborhood watch program, but our greatest strength lies in the fact that we all know each other and naturally watch over each other.
We especially watch out for the safety of the kids in the neighborhood.

This home is a lot smaller than what we are accustomed to, but it's close to the college where I go, convenient to shopping, and yet still peaceful and green.
The homes are well built and well kept and the yards are good sized to allow for space to breath. There is a dense forest behind my home where I can see a herd of deer everyday and squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, etc. come up in the yard.
We have a fire pit with Adirondack chairs around it in the back yard.
On my back patio I have a large padded swing that makes into a bed for napping. It has a shade cover.
It's a very quiet street without lots of traffic and a peaceful place to live for the most part.

All of the homes were built in the 70s and are occupied by the owners and their families who have lived there for most of their lives.
The whole neighborhood was nearly leveled in 2003 by a tornado, but none of the neighbors left, even though some of the homes had to be rebuilt.
The tragedy drew us all closer together.


The only exception to that is one family who rents.
There is more trouble from this one house than all of the homes combined on the street.
The couple who rents the house have grown children who are known drug dealers, irresponsible pit bull owners (there is a pitbull ban in Kansas City)
who attract the dregs of society to the neighborhood.

Their friends come to party on any given day, because they don't hold regular jobs. They trash their own yard, smash beer bottles in the street, and throw beer cans/bottles/trash in the neighbor's yards, all of which magically ends up in their own yard the following morning.

When they have outrageous parties on Friday or Saturday nights I park my vehicle in the end of the driveway so as not to be awakened by headlights from cars turning around in my driveway. God forbid they should use the cul de sac just 50 ft down the street to spare waking the neighbors.

When their friends cars/trucks pull up the windows on the houses rattle because of the extra loud speakers, shattering the peace and quiet we normally enjoy.

Some of the neighbors have complained to the police (noise abatement laws),
sent petitions and filed lawsuit against the owner of the home, and done a variety of things. But nothing really solved the problem until the neighbors decided to take things into their own hands.

Spikes have been thrown along the street where the partiers would be parking one Saturday. Lots of tires were flattened in that episode.
In another incident fireworks were piled in their backyard and set off in the early morning hours setting off panic among the hungover sleeping partiers, who all ran for their vehicles, which had all been disabled.
All of the beer bottles that had been thrown in neighbors yards were gathered up, smashed, and spread out in front and behind partier's vehicles as the party went on.

One of the sibling/drug dealers has moved out and taken his trashy friends when him.
One of the neighbors have allowed police to set up surveillance in their home.
When the drug dealing renters are busted the home can be seized from the owner and put up for sale.
In the meantime all of the other neighbors lobbied the county to forbid renting homes.

Anytime shit goes down at that troubled house I just laugh, knowing that the neighbors are taking care of things.

I live in a small town about 99% white, a few blacks and a few Asians…
It use to be a cottage town (summer recreational community) now about 90% of the people live here year round.
It’s great for the girls cause of the land and the lake/beach is only a 2min walk away.
The people here have their “toys� boats and snowmobile, during the winters you will always find snowmobiles going through the drive thru at our local coffee shop. Or in the parking lot of the local grocery store.
We have two gas stations and they close at 8:00pm…
There are a few Corean shop owners, one gas station. One pizza place, a dry cleaner, variety store and one biker bar!

The first time I visited their respective stores, I got the “are you Corean� question – they would proceed to introduce themselves and we’d shake hands… lol, I would also get the “family� questions from the lady of the store… if I was married or single… lol

I like the small town environment and my office is in the city so it doesn’t feel like I left the city at all…

~FreeBeer

I live in the old part of Santa Clara which is near the Santa Clara University which has the Santa Clara Mission on campus. We're surrounded by old Victorian houses and I love the fact that all the houses are different versus the suburban speads that all look the same. There is such a mixture of residents ... you have the young spoiled kids who go to SCU and the older people who've lived here all their lives, mostly Portuguese who came here when there were orchards and basically settled this area.

In the span of about 15 blocks, it's nice but after you cross El Camino and get towards the train tracks, it gets a little bit more seedy. One block from my house is a little mall called Franklin Mall and has a couple really good restaurants, your mom & pop liquor store and a couple other stores that come and go. The funniest part is within this little neighborhood, there are five or six nail places. And all of them are mediocre.

If you go South a bit ... maybe 3 or 4 city blocks, you'll find Valley Fair, a huge sprawling mall. The closer you get to the mall, the less individual the houses and more suburban it looks. Even though I live in a "city", I've lived here 9 years and we don't lock our doors because it's a very safe neighborhood.

Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls. The most massive characters are seared with scars. ~ Khalil Gibran

Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. ~ Mahatma Ghandi

We live in a nice quiet residential area of Cherokee Nation. There is virtually no crime over here. People leave their doors unlocked at times, because people seem to trust and know everyone. This is true country living out here I tell ya' lol! It's predominantly Native American and White here with a sprinkle of Black,Asian, and Mexican!

We live right across the street from a cattle and horse ranch. We see them outside every morning up close to the gate sitting under the shade. This is very new for me, being that I'm from NY. Our house is not on top of our neighbors, we have a lot of space and privacy in between so we can't really hear what they are doing. However, it's nice to know that they are quiet, reserved, and family oriented! We have only gotten to know the neighbors on the left side of our house.... a nice Native American family. When they mow their lawn, they will go ahead and do ours at times, which is really nice of them and we do the same for them. They also take time out to talk to us and try and get to know us whenever we are outside and they are just really nice people!

There is everything here in this small town. The people are very friendly and curious. There are a lot of antique shops and unique lil' mom and pop shops that are fun to go and check out in our lil' mini down town strip...lol! We have a movie theater right around the corner from our house, and all of the shopping centers and restaurants are less than 5 minutes away. So it's kewl for the experience. We are planning to move in about 1 year, so this is temporary, but it's tempting to stay forever sometimes ...lol

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