Covid reduced tensions that existed at the office because people working from home don’t complain about cube mates’ noise or constant microwave popcorn. It reduced road rage because highways were veritably empty and people could sail on their way.
Covid even reduced “parking rage” since people seldom abandoned their on-street spots near their homes and had to hunt for scarce parking when they returned.
Housing Rage
But Covid debuted a new kind of rage – housing rage. After a year of seclusion, many in apartment or condo buildings have had their fill of family, roommates and other congregated living headaches.
In fact, housing rage may affect more people than all the others – combined.
Here are a few:
Laundry Room
Why are the washers and driers either in use or holding hot masses of “done” clothes that you really don’t want to touch? (Out of respect for their owners and respect for yourself?)
Why do the washer and drier settings either boil your delicate clothes or barely heat?
Why has drier number 3 not had heat for a year?
What is the blue glue-like substance on the top of washer 2 that apparently doesn’t wash off? How can you avoid washer 2?
Who owns the clothing in the “lost and found” box that is so big or strange that it seems like a joke for Halloween? Are the articles really your neighbors’?
Neighbors
Is there some kind of building rule that decrees on any given day at least one neighbor must cook cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower or fish so there is always a pungent smell in the hallway? Remaining long after “dinner”?
Are the daily pot smokers who infuse the hallway’s air really “medical users”? Has anyone ever seen them?
Why do the techno music lovers begin, not end, playing their music at 10 PM?
Why doesn’t the couple in Unit 12 just get a divorce?
Do the people in Unit 22 move furniture every night? Or are they jumping up and down with ten friends for our edification?
Mail Room
Why do businesses keep attaching door hangers for home improvements or cut-rate auto tune-ups? Don’t they know we are as broke as they are? Don’t they know we would rather move than “improve” the housing we are now stuck in? Don’t they know that a car tune-up is not necessary when you have barely driven for nine months?
Why do companies send several copies of the same piece of junk mail? As if one piece weren’t enough? Why do neighbors drop the junk mail on the floor as if they don’t live here like we do?
Why are the mail compartments in the building approximately six inches by two inches so you only get an Attempt-To-Deliver notice of a package or worse – it is left on the floor for anyone to steal?
Why has a phone book covered with spider webs sat in the corner for a year? When was the last time anyone used a phone book?
Amazon
We get it that anything brick and mortar stores can do, Amazon can do quicker. We get it that people like to shop online at all hours and that driving for Amazon is one of the few viable jobs today. These facts will not bring back the closed stores, businesses and malls that online shopping has caused.
Garbage
Even during non-Covid times, neighbors can’t seem to discern the difference between objects that go into the “landfill” container and objects that go into the “recycle” container. (Which part of paper, plastic, cardboard do they not understand?)
But Amazon and online shopping has only increased the refuse problem with huge cartons from neighbors’ LG CX OLED television purchases spilling out of the dumpsters – the better to watch Netflix.
Family
Covid has caused many Millennials to move home with their families and 90 percent of white collar workers to “work from home.” We predict that many extended families will skip celebrating holidays this winter with their family if they can – having had enough exposure to them.
Some people working at home have families that think they don’t need to work so much, and can do chores or take care of the kids. This is a great contributor to housing rage and a reduction in productivity.
We also predict that no one for the next ten years will say they are leaving a job to “spend more time with my family.” Housing rage is real, every bit as bad as the other rages, and it may not go away anytime soon.
