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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#148: The Lease I Can Do

Most of us at one time or another will live in an apartment building. Whether you live in a dorm while at college, or you live in a high-rise in Manhattan, sharing a wall or two with your neighbors certainly keeps things interesting. And living in such close proximity to other people has its pros and cons — you’re never too far from help if you need it, but you’re also never too far from the party your downstairs neighbors seem to throw every weekend.

What are some of your fondest (or least fond) memories of apartment living? Use these five prompts to explore what it’s really like to live in an apartment building — or just a little too close to your neighbors for comfort.

This week's prompts

Write about two neighbors who cannot stand each other.

Sad – 43 stories

Write a story involving a noise complaint.

Sad – 45 stories

Include a character in your story that is often in an apartment building, but doesn’t actually live there.

High School – 38 stories

Write about a couple touring an empty apartment they might rent.

Narrative – 27 stories

Write about an apartment building being demolished.

Sad – 42 stories

Stories

“Taking Care” by Nina Thompson

Submitted to Contest #148

Her withered hands curled around the frosty beer bottle looked to me like the cover of a rock album. One Last Drink with the Devil, it would be called, and filled with Led-Zeppelin-esque songs about death and alcoholism.Mrs. Chambers had her dry lips pursed as she studied my apartment. I took a reluctant look around as well, trying to see my place from her perspective. The trippy posters on the wall would tell her that I smoke weed. The secondhand everything probably says that I’m a hippy, or unemployed, or both. The admittedly excessive amo...

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“Diane and the Upstairs Wife” by I.M. Carney

Submitted to Contest #148

[Warning: domestic violence] Diane was surprised to find that the only thing she hated more than a pan filled with oil left on the stove by her roommate or the toilet paper roll left empty was living alone and finding every evening when she returned home from a long day of selling over-priced sneakers to stuck-up college students that no one, not even her gaudy roommate who was always late on paying rent, was there to greet her. This roommate, Ellie, who Diane insisted privately for a year and a half only to friends who didn’t know Ellie v...

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“D8” by K.K Ameyo

Submitted to Contest #148

“Let me call you back in a few minutes, okay?” “Okay. Bye.” As soon as she hung up, Terrence sighed and threw his phone on the plastic wrapped couch. Hands on his waist, he took his time examining the empty white walled apartment he had just moved into. Walking past the furniture, he slid the floor to ceiling doors apart and admired the view of the evening sky’s reflection on the man-made lake across the streets adjacent to his apartment block. “Something new,” he said to himself. He had just got accepted in a new firm and had to move halfwa...

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“Perdita” by Francesca Weisman

Submitted to Contest #148

Perdita would never have used the phrase “My real name is Karen”. If anyone asked, which they almost never did, she’d say: “Karen is my given name, my chosen name is Perdita”. Given, to be fair, was pushing it a bit. Allocated, more like: stuck on like a luggage label. Her mother’s choice, who had stood by the mirror in the hallway, and said, But those clothes aren’t you, Karen, they’re for someone…..glamorous. Or Are you quite sure you’re up to doing that job? Karen maintained sullen silence; but Perdita was defian...

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“Condemn It All” by AJ Jones

Submitted to Contest #148

Today is the day you move into your new home.Being nervous at a time like this is natural; you’re familiar with the feeling of twisting guts and hot blood and cold sweat. You turn off the moving van, shuddering to a stop, and the quiet in the cabin sounds like music to your ears. Moving vehicles, you’ve learned, are not quiet machines, and neither are the items you’ve carefully packed into the back. You withdraw your new key with a sigh and get to work.It’s going to be a very long day. The sun isn’t even fully awake yet.Your friend, Will, ex...

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“White Noise ” by M. Tobin

Submitted to Contest #148

*Content Warning: Mental Health and Substance Abuse*Apartment life can be noisy. Close proximity to others living their own timelines can lead to- misunderstandings. I was always taught to mind my own, to stay in my lane and let people figure out problems by themselves. No use sticking a clean nose into shit, my mother used to say between thick clouds of smoke, gnawed unfiltered camel hanging from her thin dry lips. It’s a good rule, keeps you on the straight and narrow and helps avoid trouble. I stuck to this rule even when I move...

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“The Squatter in Southside Sunrise” by T T

Submitted to Contest #148

For a week, I thought I’d been crying in my sleep. Every morning I awoke with a tear stained face and a damp pillow. On the fourth day, the leak revealed itself like a dripping wound. I found a trickle of water bouncing on my pillow and called Douglas, my scrimping landlord who attempted to be his own handyman. At the cost of sleeping on the couch for a night, he patched up the ceiling as best as he could with cardboard and drywall. Another week flew by and the ceiling took on a shape. A belly formed above my bed where water had sunk in. No...

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“Haunted” by Ivy Hodges

Submitted to Contest #148

Content warning: Mentions of mental illness, physical violence, death. ****** Even before Nick’s death, I had been funding a pretty good life for my therapist. Genetic predisposition for depression and social anxiety, plus two absentee parents, equals plenty of CBT fodder. But after losing my partner of three years to an unsolved murder? I basically became a full-blown basket case. The small mountain of empty pill bottles shoved into the bottom of my nightstand could have proved that much. A month before the anniversary of his death, ...

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“Keeper of La Giraldilla” by Javier Martinez

Submitted to Contest #148

The front gate of La Giraldilla was about what I expected after glimpsing it in the worn-out pamphlet given to me by Papá, right before he passed. This was it. There was no turning back. La Giraldilla was this old-fashioned apartment building in Hialeah, Florida. I finally took my father’s advice and moved. It was tall, stout, yet still small for an apartment complex, mostly solid white save for places where the paint flaked off. And at its crown, atop its cupola, sat its namesake: a giraldilla, the bronze statuette of a fierce, serene...

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“A Ghost Story ” by Emiliano Cruz Villanueva

Submitted to Contest #148

Two kids sitting in a brick wall, smoking, laughing, and listening to music. Coffee nights and slumber parties. Movies and drinks after an awful week. That’s what Joe meant to me. I still remember how terribly sad I was when we first met and how terribly alone he felt.I’m not sure I can ever forget him, even though the face of my once best friend is blurry in my mind. I remember the black hair, the pale skin that reddened with too much sun or without on the cold days. I remember how tall he was and how we could talk about nothing and everyth...

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“Haunted by Angels ” by Trinity Symington

Submitted to Contest #148

“Clarisse Hedgens” the familiar real estate agent smiles and extends her hand. The translucent forms of Edgar and Louisa hover near the three living ones. Only they see the strain in the agent’s perfect smile. “Oh, Louisa look how tired the poor woman looks.” “Shush Edgar.” The eager couple in front of them smiles back and takes turns shaking her hand. “I’m Amanda Baker and this is my husband Todd Baker.” Amanda has a nasally voice and lipstick on her teeth. “That voice,” Louisa says pointedly. “Now, Now, there are f...

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“My Home, Saying Goodbye. ” by Crystal Glisson

Submitted to Contest #148

The old apartment building stands before me, a place of memories soon to be gone. I watch the hustle and bustle of the people going by, not paying any mind to me. This once apartment building full of families, is now deemed unfit to live in. I let out a sigh, and gathered my few sparse items. I made my way to an abandoned building, a few blocks from the apartments. This area was known as the filth row. A place where the homeless go to set up shop. It’s sad that at the age of thirty, I am not even the youngest here. I give a small smi...

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“Excaveat Emptor” by Michael Brown

Submitted to Contest #148

It began with letters mailed to each resident, and papers posted on the bulletin board of the foyer, then signs on the front door. A coming day that would mark the end. Not exactly a doomsday, but an inconvenience, to be sure. The challenge of finding a new place to live. For this building and the ground it stood upon was now owned by a development company with grand dreams of a new shopping mall. The location was perfect, they had gushed. Citing the statistics of growth in the area, and supporting infrastructure already in place. Th...

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“Happiness: A Creation, Not a Discovery” by Cydney Rose

Submitted to Contest #148

I try to brush the wrinkles from my bright orange blouse, creased with lines from its eight-hour shift spent balled up and thrown into my designated locker in the changing room shared by five of us. Since moving back to New York City, I’ve been cast in my very first movie for the role of a character so insignificant I often feel like a much less fictitious, much more pitiful Joey Tribbiani from Friends. Of course, this ego-crushing initiation into the acting world would all be worth it if, for instance, I actually enjoyed acting. And ...

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“Eighty Years” by Bianca Vorster

Submitted to Contest #148

An old man sat on a bench. A red scarf wrapped around his neck. The jacket hung loose around a body thin and weak from age. The wrinkles on his face lined the tired eyes that stared across the park at an empty apartment building. All around him people walked by. People of much younger years yet equally tired eyes. Time already taking its toll on those who’ve not yet seen half a life. The old man shook his head as he watched the worn faces walking on towards places where he hoped they would be happier at then where they had been. Such a pity....

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$250

Prize money

195

Contest entries

90

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Jun 03, 2022 EST

Won by S.K. Wulf 🏆

Title: Two Stubborn Women

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

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