When you need an emergency cat sitter, your neighbors are nowhere to be found. But when you are renovating, people are poking their noses all over your soon-to-be new apartment. The following comments need no translation:
- After the men start the demo: "This already sounds like a big job."
- When the new walls are up: "We were here when the Schtotts lived here. It was a perfectly fine apartment."
- As the tile is being cut: "Dear me, my piano students are simply beside themselves."
- As the wood varnish is being applied: "We don't just hear you today, we smell you."
- When it is all over: "Did you notice that rip in the lovely flocked wallpaper the house committee chose in 1953?"
Veronica X. is a Canadian by birth, an Upper West Sider by nature, and an Upper East Siderby choice and circumstance. She has finally found an apartment big enough for her family, books, and shoes and is now in the process of renovating it.