The worst part about living in a basement apartment (besides hearing EV RUH THING my upstairs neighbors are doing and fighting a losing battle against wolf spiders and centipedes) is the darkness. My apartment is UNDERGROUND. The sun is ABOVE GROUND. Do the math.
Luckily this place does have quite a few windows, some rather large, compared to other basement apartments I’ve lived in. The children’s living room, in particular, has a decently-sized window that lets in a lot of light.
There would probably be even more light coming in, except right outside that window is the fence of the old pink house next door.
That house has actually sold now, and the new owners have been working non-stop to make it habitable- in spite of the million dollar+ asking price, it was apparently a dank, disgusting hellhole that needed to be completely gutted. They’ve torn out the carpets, the walls, the ceilings, the electrical wiring, EVERYTHING, and they’ve also cut down/back a lot of the overgrown plants in their yard. When they first pruned all the trees and bushes, I was amazed! There was so much more light getting into my apartment! I was no longer suffering from the year-round version of SAD that afflicts people who dwell in darkness! Hallelujah!
Two Saturday afternoons ago I was in the backyard talking to my upstairs neighbor about it, about how much brighter my apartment was and how happy I was that the new neighbors had taken care of the garden. Then I went inside and saw this:
They boarded up all the gaps in the fence. It’s 800% darker in here now.
Like, I KNOW it’s their fence and they can do what they want with it and have a right to have privacy in the their backyard that they paid an undoubtedly absurd amount of money for, but it still seems like kind of a dick move. And I think they knew it too, because instead of starting at one end and working their way across, they boarded up the gaps to the left of my window, then the gaps to the right of my window, and then when they had nothing else left to board up they did the gaps right in front of my window.
I should ask them to buy me a SAD light 🙁
How rude. Like seriously, its not like you see that much into their garden anyway, just let there be light!
Well they put a hot tub back there so I think they are planning on having some sexy parties.
That is so sad! I wish that they left it open – sunlight is always better than no sunlight! I wonder if you talk to them, they would be willing to change at least that portion of the fence to more slats and less giant boards.
That would be such and awkward conversation, especially if they said no! I think this is just temporary anyway, they’re probably going to tear the whole thing down and put up a completely new one after they’re done with the house.