Right out back of the apartment complex is a large dumpster set aside for recyclables, but I can't use it. The landlord's kid and his ne'er-do-well hoodlum friends spend the majority of their free time around the dumpster.

My new landlord is an ant. I don't have a problem with that. Instead, I see it as a way to learn about another culture and broaden my horizons.

So I also didn't mind when he told me about the bottles and cans.

"Do me a favor," he says, "and rinse all yer cans. [My son and his friends] get into everything. From soda to beer dregs to wine coolers. It's disgraceful."

I don't have time to rinse, so it piles up. It's time to take it out when I can't walk to the bedroom, groggy and newly awoken, without kicking a noisy alumnimum path to the toilet.

Some nights it's hard to sleep because of noise outside. Chittering and the shifting of plastic on metal.