This is war

Here we are a week later, and still no balcony photos to share with you. Our balcony was perfect for literally 1 or 2 days. It finally felt like a completed space to sit and enjoy, the love seat and table went well with the rugs, and I was happy. Well, my happiness was short-lived, because that's when the bird seed started appearing.

It started out slow- little by little I found seed here and there, and then the next thing I knew, the whole balcony was covered in bird seed. BIRD SEED, lots and lots of it. For once in my life I am pretty sure I hate birds more than Rob does, and that is saying something! The funny thing is that only a couple weeks ago I told Rob that I was going to get a bird feeder, and how funny would it be to watch Roxanne watch the birds all day? Rob pointed out that there probably wouldn't be any birds eating out of our feeder because Roxanne would scare them all away. He's right, even though part of him was probably just trying to put a stop to the whole bird feeder idea.

So I quickly got over not having a bird feeder of my own when I went outside the other day and realized my table, love seat, rugs and plants were covered with bird seed. The guy who lives 2 floors above us has a bird feeder on his balcony. At first I thought he was being really careless with his birdseed. Then I thought that the birds must really be going crazy with their eating up there. I even took into consideration that it had been really windy and stormy out lately so maybe the seed was blowing off of the feeder. Or maybe the 2 little child monsters that live directly above us were actually taking bird seed and pouring it through their balcony floor cracks onto our balcony. It didn't hit me until I saw the squirrel on our balcony that the squirrels are at least 75% to blame for the mess I am currently dealing with. They climb up 4 floors, attack the feeder, and make the biggest mess ever, those little devils.

I was so mad about it that I wrote the neighbors a note and taped it to their front door, explaining the daily mess I am dealing with and how my dog is trying to eat all the bird seed, and it's all over the furniture and can you possibly manage your bird seed better?!? Maybe a more mature, secure person would have knocked on their front door and talked to them face to face, but I couldn't bring myself to face that sort of awkwardness. I don't know who lives in that apartment, but I think I have narrowed down the possibilities to 2 men in their 50's. Though I don't really want to talk to either of them, I do hope that whoever lives up there walks by one of these times while I'm sweeping my rugs off so that he can see the situation firsthand, and just maybe start a conversation with me about it that we can have at a comfortable distance (me on my 2nd floor balcony, he on the ground level). Since I haven't received any response letters, the bird feeder has not moved/changed, and I'm sweeping the same amount of seed today as I was before I wrote the note, the future is not looking very bright. I have a real jerk of a neighbor on my hands here. This really wouldn't bother me as much if I didn't just buy new furniture that I would like to enjoy without having to pick bird seed off of my lap. Rob said it best when he said something along these lines, "It isn't going to be the loud, disrespectful neighbors that push you over the edge, or the continuously broken gate, or the people who drive 40mph through the complex with their music pumping, or the average/sub-average apartment amenities that make you want to move to a new apartment complex; it's going to be the bird seed on your balcony that does it."

And an update...since I wrote this post a couple days ago, it has gotten worse. Today when I went outside to assess the situation, I found 5 blobs of squirrel poop, more bird seed than ever, and it looks as though something has been in my plants kicking dirt around to get pieces of seed that have fallen into the plants. I faced my fears and knocked on apartment 261's door, but no one answered. So, I called the front office to complain to the manager...but she was in a meeting. Manager Nancy will be hearing from me today though, that is for sure.