You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your neighbors. Fortunately you can only have so many neighbors: Next-door, above, below and across the hall or street. Therefore, the probability of having more than one bad neighbor is low.

Unless you happen to work in multi-family housing, as I have for the past two years. When you live where you work, every person who lives in your complex considers you a neighbor. The chance of having a difficult neighbor rises exponentially when you have to deal with 300 units – roughly 500 people – as I did when I managed property in Colorado.

They knock on your door when you are sleeping because their bathroom sink is clogged. They complain on your way in and out of the parking lot. They want you to dog, cat, plant or baby-sit. The Lord said, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” but that is difficult when your neighbor is suing you.

“John” (all names have been changed to protect the guilty) held his baby like a football and made his living flipping burgers between lawsuit settlements. He attempted to sue our office over an allegedly slippery step. The case was dropped when he could not find a doctor to say he was actually injured.

“Carrie,” who married a gentleman 25 years younger than her, made her new husband take her last name. She was the QVC shopping queen, and her new husband picked up the daily deliveries every evening at our office. The staff always suspected that she married him just for that reason. Despite having night blindness, she liked to walk her dog after dark. She sued us after she tripped over a hole her dog dug right in front of her.

“Dave” was a newly rich, lottery-winning 19-year-old when he moved into our nicest three-bedroom apartment. He smoked a lot of pot and transferred units four times, each time saying, “This apartment is just a little off.” We found out he was a little off when he shot through his floor with a gun he was “cleaning.” The bullet ripped through the ceiling of the unit below, putting a hole in the bedpost of the apartment beneath. He believed he was wrongfully evicted and threatened to sue.

I survived all the bogus lawsuit filings, but those were nothing compared to the daily dealings with pets. Most apartment complexes have regulations regarding pets, and ours was no exception. There was a pet deposit at move-in, and pet fees to be paid monthly.

“Tom” brought his dog down to the swimming pool and let him jump in. He refused to make the dog leave the pool area, saying, “If my dog has to pay rent, he should be allowed to swim in the pool.”

“Beth” was so frightened of her neighbor’s iguana that she refused to leave her house until I could persuade her neighbor, “Nancy,” to let him sunbathe at another window. “Beth’s” terror was complicated by the fact that “Nancy” preferred to walk her iguana through the neighborhood on a leash at .00003 mph.

Speaking of strange animals on leashes, another tenant, “Debbie” walked around with her bird on a leash.

As if the lawsuits and pet troubles were not enough, there are things no contract or disclaimer can foresee. There were the self-proclaimed gypsies, for example. I woke up one morning to a parking-lot yard sale, complete with signs and large pieces of furniture blocking the entrance to the clubhouse. They were selling everything they owned, carnival-style, but still skipped out on rent.

I had a gentleman whose neighbors complained that he yelled at himself. A little girl roller-skated through my office daily. One woman’s children washed their dog in the dishwasher (he survived with minor injuries).

It’s that time of year when everyone is shopping for fall housing. From my wacky experiences, I recommend turning your friends into neighbors, and if all else fails, your neighbors into friends.

Rebecca Miller is a senior in psychology. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].