Upstairs Neighbor Actually Giant Parrot Learning What Happens When He Drops Objects On Floor
LOS ANGELES, CA—While Highland Park is often filled with the joyous screeching of freedom-loving cherry-headed conures out to bag lunch from an apricot tree, last March this wild gang lost a member to a nearby refurbished apartment. While the quaint one-bedroom did come with its own stacked washer/dryer and gated parking space, the birds could not fully understand their mate’s lifestyle choice and let it slide, in the process failing to report the defection to local authorities.
The avian inhabitant of the second-floor unit on Avenue 52 managed to apply for and claim the domicile last spring due to strict social distancing rules for showing properties.
“We had no clue the tenant was not a human man in his forties,” claimed leasing manager Alan Skortt. “The pile of feather down shaped into an impressive FICO score that he left outside our office convinced us he was the best applicant on offer.”
When the parrot’s downstairs neighbor Lucy Wigs reported repeated noise disturbances—the constant thudding of objects onto the resonant polished hardwood floors above, the back-and-forth skittering of tiny feet, fingernails-on-a-chalkboard style scraping of furniture against the ground—the mystery tenant’s retort to building management was that he couldn’t possibly be the originator of such problematic sounds draining the life out of his neighbor.
“‘Hello! I’m a pretty bird,’ were the exact words he used when I explained the complaints against him,” said property manager Elvia Torres. “Then he performed a spot-on rendition of The Addams Family theme song.”
When asked about whether she suspected the biped in question possessed wings, Torres sighed and said that while her conscious mind was in the dark, she “couldn’t help but offer to Postmates him a sprig of millet.”
Could it be that the reason Wigs’ new neighbor hadn’t written back to her thoughtful letter imploring him to respect quiet hours per their lease was that he was not capable of holding a pen? Yet judging from the frequent buzz of electronics that echoed into her living room, it was clearly in his nature to vacuum that much. And so he could, thanks to a double yellow-headed Amazon who delivered his hands-free Roomba.
“After not getting a response from the jerk regarding either my requests or those of building management, I descended into rental hell,” the weary Wigs explained. “Trying to break my lease felt too expensive and exhausting during a global pandemic. Instead, I tried to suss out how the guy upstairs managed to not once engage his muscles while picking up a chair and why he seemingly loved hearing plastic cups, textbooks, sweatshirts, and skateboards drop to the floor throughout the day. Did he ever pick the objects back up? Why did he have a massive acrylic container of open, murky water?"
At last, respite for the besieged first-floor resident arrived in the form of a move-out date.
Torres delivered the great news to Wigs, exclaiming “I’m so sorry you had to pay rent on a torture chamber for a full calendar year, but the problem is solved: your neighbor is migrating north on the thirtieth!”
Justice and a state of shock would come to the lax realty firm, however, upon inspecting the vacated space on the first of the month. Not only had they rented to a bird grown large via access to the Figueroa corridor’s contemporary Italian restaurant Hippo, but that bird had chewed holes into all edges, baseboards, and knobs and spread his seed everywhere.
