Moving On Up

Ben and I are in the process of buying a condo. Since we are going to be living in Philly for whatever ungodly amount of time it will take him to build a sentient robot army and get his PhD, we figured it would be a good move to invest in owning property here.

We’ve already selected a place, had our offer accepted, and got it inspected. We recently had to sign a list of Condo Association Rules and Regulations, to promise that we are functional humans capable of living in a building with other functional humans. Most of the rules are pretty straightforward – don’t leave trash in common areas, don’t put crazy stuff down your drains, don’t hang laundry out your windows like you live in a tenement building, and so on. But two rules stood out to me as particularly interesting:

• No Unit owners shall play upon, or suffer to be played upon, any musical instrument, or operate or suffer to be operated, a phonograph, television set, radio or sound amplifier, or use or suffer to be used, any exercise equipment, in his Unit in such manner as to disturb or annoy other occupants of the Building.

It’s not that I’m surprised there is a “don’t make obnoxious noises” rule, so much as I was taken aback by the arcane phrasing – “suffer to be played upon any musical instrument” in particular. Also, was phonograph usage really so problematic in this building that it had to get called out by name in the official rules? The building isn’t even that old, but the phonograph clause makes it sound like the rules were written in the Roaring 20s.

In stark contrast to the circumlocution of the obnoxious noises rule, the next rule is much more straightforward:

• Unit owners shall not permit any objectionable odors to emanate from their Units.

I like this one because it is so direct, and because it is an amendment. This makes me imagine that it was added because of one really smelly person who moved into the building, who was confronted about their extreme smelliness and responded that there are no olfactory restrictions in the official condo rulebook, so tough noogies. Then an emergency Condo Association Constitutional Convention was called for the express purpose of outlawing objectionable odors, but because of the time pressure they didn’t have time to mince words about “smelling or suffering to be smelled upon any unsavory perfumes.”

In conclusion, I am a few short weeks away from being a property-owning adult with a mortgage and home insurance, but all I can think about is the mysterious smelly person who forever altered our condo’s constitution.