Those were my sin days. One devious deed I did do was knock on the dope dealers window at 3and then I would rush back to my apartment unseen. The silly pothead would rush out his door only to find I was gone.

I did this on numerous occasions. My pothead neighbor finally caught on and he started getting back at me. One day I noticed two adult toys in the back of my pickup truck. I should have written his apartment number on those things and tossed them in the pool, but I didn't. I should have stolen his electric power meter on a Friday with a holiday Monday following, but I didn't. I also thought about taping a brick of firecrackers to his window, but I didn't.

Our apartment complex was rectangular with four separate buildings facing each other with small gaps between each building. A ground level sidewalk with gates at four points was how you entered the atrium of the complex. These pedestrian gates were always unlocked. My pothead neighbor lived right next to one of these gates and so if this gate was locked, he couldn't get outside the complex unless he scaled this particular gate or used another gate which was much further away.

The gates themselves were made of steel box tubing which resembles wrought iron, but isn't as strong. One night I bound the gate nearest my favorite neighbors door with baling wire. This wire was just wrapped around the gate and support fence and could be unraveled in a minute, but a minute was all I needed. I knocked loudly and ran to a point of safety to watch with glee his anger and frustration. Music to my ears.

I eventually moved out and would come back every so often to play the window knocking game. When I first moved into that apartment complex it was an undiscovered gem. The apartment managers were competent, the neighbors were good, and the grounds well-kept. Then they retired and the circus began. The owner brought in clown after clown and things went downhill. The parking lot soon became a dumping ground for stolen vehicles and drug dealing.

The owner stabilized the situation by moving in himself. He tried fixing up the place, but it was an uphill battle. Instead of hiring a large crew of professionals to fix numerous apartments at once, he brought in two slowpokes to work on a single apartment at a time. They would fix an apartment and then a crackhead would move in. By the time they fixed another apartment, two crackheads would have moved out leaving more open apartments in need of repairs. The slowpokes installed new stairs and railings upstairs, but they never fixed every apartment.

The owner installed a long time acquaintance as manager, but she fizzled out and left the scene. Then the owner hired a very unscrupulous property management company and they really let things go. They let gang members in and soon there was a shooting which scared away a few of the better tenants. The owner hired a less unscrupulous property management company and the gang members left. Then other drug dealers and drama queens moved in. It took over a year, but the owner finally wised up to the fact that he was being ripped off. This is when the potheads next door moved in.

Then the owner installed another manager who ripped him off even more and it took months for this to be discovered and dealt with. I moved out a few months after the new manager started letting in more dregs of society in. The whole apartment complex just needed to be burned down and a new one built, but that hasn't happened.