Where I moved, it is typically quiet, laid back, and so forth. Even the kids are not that loud (or don't seem that way), and you can go for hours with it being pretty much as dead quiet as someplace with twenty or so air conditioning units ringing the outskirts of each building can get.
Night time is, or was, as quiet if not more so. Usually, once the sun goes down, the most noise originates from evening swimmers in the pool area, or folks going into the pool area to get a coke out of the machine located there (IE: I can hear the gate to the area open and shut with clarity). Not much seemed to happen around here--at least not much ugly.
For the past two weeks, though, I've heard several fights start outside. As far as I can tell, so far it's been pretty much verbal, but it's loud, tends to travel all over the complex area, and sometimes gets to the point where, depending on the participants' natures, could degenerate into something violent, and possibly deadly. Most of it seems to be what cops would euphemistically label as 'domestic'. Once or twice, the fight was between two men that were getting into the whole verbal posturing of 'you talking to me?'. Usually, though, it seems to be man/woman, or, tonight, woman/woman with a child in tow.
It seems silly, but when these fights start up, my instinct is to head for the bathroom and put at least a couple of walls between me and the well-windowed south side of my apartment. For those of you who have seen pics, you can probably understand why. I'm on the ground floor, and glass makes a poor shield. And the disadvantage of being right across from the mailboxes is that I'm on the last leg of the exit to the parking lot. I keep an ear out, especially if I hear kids, both to keep track of whether or not it seems like weaponry and/or violence is getting involved (so I can call the cops quickly), or so, god forbid, I can be available to grab someone out of a situation and lock them inside with me if that's the only (extremely slim) succor that can be gotten for them.
It's damn scary, and I'm wondering what got this started up lately.
Ah well...life in the 'burbs, eh? :P
And crap, they're back. And still fighting. :/
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