Chapter 1: What challenges did Dr. Crowns face with his noisy upstairs neighbor?
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Once again, this episode has discussions of deaths of individuals. If this sort of thing upsets you, this is again not the episode for you. Welcome to Mayhem in the Morning with your host, Dr. Kendall Crowns. Today's episode, Neighbors. Neighbors, unless you own a private island, you can't escape them. Some are good, some are bad, and some you never know.
But the really bad ones are the ones you really remember. Today, I'm going to talk about a couple of problematic neighbors that I have had over the years.
Chapter 2: How did Dr. Crowns attempt to address the noise issue with his neighbor?
When I was in medical school, I lived in an apartment complex on Rainbow Boulevard in Kansas City, Kansas. It was near some train tracks and a highway. The apartments were small, reasonably priced, and were a few blocks away from the school, and most of the people who lived there were actually medical students.
I walked from these apartments every day to go to class, and they were incredibly convenient. I can still remember my apartment number. It was 514. It was in the back corner of one section. I shared a wall with one person, and I had a neighbor across from me and one above me.
Behind my apartment was a tree-covered hill that blocked out the sun, so that wasn't really a neighbor unless you count the feral cats and raccoons. In the years that I lived there, my neighbor across from me was non-existent. I saw her only once. She, too, was a medical student, but a little further along than me.
Chapter 3: What unexpected events escalated the conflict with the upstairs neighbor?
She was a great neighbor, never there, kept to herself. When she was there, she was always quiet. During my first semester of school, my upstairs neighbor was also very quiet. He was in his final year of school, and he was never there as well, and I never heard him except maybe once or twice. And because my apartment was so quiet, I studied there a lot.
It was convenient, I could get snacks, I could nap, and occasionally watch TV, and I developed quite a routine. I went home for Christmas that year, and when I returned, I had a new upstairs neighbor. I still remember his name, but because he isn't dead, maybe.
Chapter 4: What were the consequences of the upstairs neighbor's behavior during finals?
I'll refer to him as Lane. Lane and I started medical school together. My class size was 175 students, which is a big group of people, and you were always busy. And due to that, I knew who he was, but I didn't know him. And his last name was also further down the alphabet than mine. And that meant we had no interaction in labs or clinical rotations.
Lane wasn't always in his apartment, but when he was, Lane liked to get drunk. And when he was drunk, he liked to get loud. And he liked to do this at all hours of the day. I remember one time, at 2 a.m., he sat on his back porch blowing a Mardi Gras horn for over an hour. Lane also liked to entertain strippers from a local strip club called Bazookas at his apartment.
Sometimes he would be having extracurricular activities with them late at night, and it would also get awful loud. But the most annoying thing that he did was on the morning of our examinations. And that activity was, he would play the song Rooster by Alice in Chains. If you're not familiar with Alice in Chains, they are a heavy metal band that formed in Seattle in 1987.
Chapter 5: How did Dr. Crowns' new neighbor in Texas impact his life?
And they're always mixed in with the grunge musical scene of the 1990s. If you're not familiar with the song Rooster, it's a song about a soldier in the Vietnam War. And it is written by one of the members of the band by the name of Jerry Cantrell. It's a very loud guitar and drum-driven song. And at 7 a.m. on every test day, it would start like clockwork.
I would be sitting, eating my Cheerios next to my kitchen sink, reading my panic notes that I had put together the night before to do some last-minute studying. And I would hear the opening guitar riff to the song, followed by the lyric, "'Ain't found a way to kill him yet.'" And a few seconds later, the chorus, "'Here they come to snuff the rooster. You know he ain't gonna die.'"
And all the while, Lane was screaming at the top of his voice along with a song. It was obviously his pre-test ritual. And we all have those. I always like to wear a particular shirt. But for me, his was really annoying.
Chapter 6: What unusual incidents occurred with Dr. Crowns' new neighbor?
Before that time, I thought Alice in Chains were a decent band. But after this sonic torture that I endured during this time period, I've never been able to listen to them again. It was incredibly frustrating because he was so noisy and loud and irritating, often at weird and bizarre times. I just started avoiding my apartment.
I would try to study at school to just not listen to him, but that really wasn't working for me. because I had a routine before he got there, and studying at school also had its problems as well. It wasn't always convenient. I didn't have food there, and napping in the study cubicles wasn't as comfortable. I had to do something so I could get back to my routine.
I decided I would try talking to him about the noise. I tried several times, and his response always was a pleasant, F off! Ah yes, F off. A truly educated response. I complained to the apartment manager, Polly, but there was only so much she could do, and she wasn't always there. Finally, I took matters into my own hands.
Chapter 7: What shocking event did Dr. Crowns witness involving his neighbor?
I know this is the point in a true crime story where someone ends up dead, dismembered, and disposed of in a refrigerator, but instead of that option, I went with option B. And that was, I initially pounded on the ceiling with the handle of my broom. This was ineffective because it was often actually not loud enough for him to notice.
And when he did, he would either turn up the noise or pound on his floor back. I even put a couple of holes in my ceiling pounding so hard. And when my dad came up to visit, he had to help me patch them up. After the pounding was unsuccessful, I got creative. The apartments we were living in had the same footprint, so I pretty much knew the layout of his.
I knew where his bed was, where his television was, etc., etc. I found his phone number in the student directory. And this is, of course, a time before cell phones and caller ID. It was good old-fashioned landlines. I could track where he was in his apartment based on his thunderous footsteps. And, of course, I knew the location of his phone.
It was the same spot as mine because all the phone jacks were in the same place.
Chapter 8: What was the outcome of the investigation into the neighbor's death?
My diabolical plan was, when he got really loud, I waited until he was at the farthest point from his phone in his apartment, and I would call, and I could hear his phone ringing. His music would turn off, or whatever activity he was participating in would cease, and he would walk across the floor, thump, thump, thump, and when his footsteps would get to his phone, click, I'd hang up.
I could hear him pick up the phone and say, hello, hello, and then hang up, frustrated. The footsteps would move away from the phone, heading back to his noisy activity, and I would call again. His phone would begin ringing, and he would run over to the phone, and just before he'd reach it, again, click, I would hang up. and sometimes sit in my apartment and laugh a little bit.
After a few times, this would usually agitate him and cause him to leave his apartment in frustration. And for a little while, the noise would be completely gone, and I could study until he returned to start the cycle over.
There was one occasion he even got so frustrated that he threw his phone across his apartment, screaming about why did his phone keep ringing and why did that person keep hanging up. Success was achieved. Were my tactics wrong? Were they a little juvenile? Yes. Yes, they were. But it was down to him or me at that point, and I was going to win. We kept this game up for most of the semester.
He never took his phone off the hook, which is what I would have done if the phone kept ringing and people kept hanging up, but he didn't do it for whatever reason, and I kept calling. and he would leave longer and longer, giving me longer periods of quiet. But the one thing is, I could never stop the rooster from arriving on test day. I just learned to adapt and be gone before the music started.
Eventually, my dad came up with a very reasonable solution. One time when he was coming up to visit me, he brought with him some gun range earmuffs. He told me this will probably take some of the edge off that noise, and it did. I started wearing them, and it was a little easier to deal with Lane's rambunctiousness. And things continued on for a while.
But then there was a turning point for Lane and school, and it had nothing to do with me and my phone calls. It was during the 1993 national championship game for the NCAA tournament in basketball, or March Madness. Kansas University was playing the North Carolina Tar Heels, and the winner would be crowned the NCAA champion.
The next day, though, after the game, we were scheduled to have several very critical tests, but the professors said if Kansas University won, the tests would be postponed for a few days. But if they lost, the tests would proceed as normal. All my classmates were abuzz with, oh, if they win, we don't have to take the test for another few days and we'll have more time to study.
Some were like, oh, forget it. I'm going to study anyway. For me, I was really hopeful that KU would win. And that night, I had the game on my television. But I didn't have the sound on because Lane's television was so loud I could hear the announcers through my ceiling. I was half-heartedly studying and watching the game, but by halftime it wasn't looking good.
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