Neighbors in the 'Hood

Mike and I have lived in Kenmore for almost nine months. And I love it. It is close to where I grew up and close to people I have known all my life. (Being "close" to anything in the Seattle area is good because traffic here is very challenging!)

We have attempted to befriend some of our neighbors, but sometimes it has backfired. Like when we had the upstairs family over for a BBQ last summer...they moved out shortly thereafter…it might have had something to do with my frank conversation with the wife about the kids making too much racket above our apartment. Whoops.

And a few weeks ago we asked neighbors from the building next door over to our place to watch a Seattle Seahawks playoff game with us. It was a 10:00 a.m. kickoff on a Sunday morning and we fixed a brunch-like spread. We were all set to go and at 9:45 I pressed the button on the coffeemaker to make a fresh pot. At 10:10 we started to get a little nervous. By 10:30 I started eating. By 11:00 we concluded that we had been stood up. HMPFF! So Mike and I ate (a lot) and watched the game together. And not only did the Seahawks lose, they lost bad. It wasn't until 3:00 that our neighbors came knocking on our door, thinking it was an afternoon game….

Currently the neighbors in our own building include a single gal with 2 doggies who live upstairs from us and a dad with his teen-age daughter and their little doggie who live in the other upstairs unit. (The fourth apartment is vacant right now.) We all got to know each other a lot better one night last week when the bathtub faucet blew off the wall in the tub of the single gal and water was shooting straight out of the wall at a very fast rate of speed….if only I had grabbed my camera! It was unbelievable!!!

Luckily the woman had a five-gallon bucket that she was using to empty the tub as soon as it was full. But the water was winning and the tub was overflowing. By the time Mike and I heard the commotion and went upstairs there was water everywhere! And then the dad and teen-age daughter joined the action…the next thing I knew was that Mike and the dad were out in the parking lot looking for the water main. They had the building owners on the phone and they finally found the water main and shut off all water to our building. The owner arrived shortly thereafter and was able to do a patch job so we could turn the water main back on.

But the apartment was a mess. We grabbed dry towels and brought them upstairs to help with the mop-up. The teen-age daughter worked diligently on getting the bathroom in shape and the dad gave out kudos for her initiative in helping out. Mike took wet towels and hung them over the deck railing. And I tried to calm the poor woman down. She was exhausted from dumping all that water.

Soon enough we said good-night and headed downstairs. To our nice, dry apartment – except the fan in the bathroom was "leaking" water from upstairs and some had also seeped into our kitchen. It was quick work to clean up.

And out of adversity often comes surprise. We were surprised when the woman washed our towels, folded them nicely and returned them to us quickly. Mike had offered to wash all the towels, but she wouldn’t agree to that. And the dad brought us some home-made fried chicken this week (he's a chef). Nice, huh? All we needed was a little water emergency and we have new friends in the 'hood.