Apartment Chronicles, Part 1: Trash Criminals

This is maybe 1/4 of the trash we accumulated while cleaning out our apartment. We didn't have any problems just taking it down like this and leaving it by all the other trash downstairs. But, apparently, Korea does have a problem. About 20 minutes after taking down this last load, we received an ominous knock on our door. Its like when everyone you know is all together in a house, and the doorbell rings, and everyone just kinda looks around, like "What the...?" I looked through the peephole and saw what looked to be a security guard, but it could have been a police officer for all I know. He yelled at me in Korean, and then to make things fair, he yelled at Heather in Korean. Its always hilarious when people here try to talk to Heather because she will just completely engage in the conversation in full-blown English, to which the Korean always meets with more nonsense, assuming if they talk long enough they might both understand what the heck is going on. I, on the other hand, just shake my head and shrug my shoulders until they leave me alone.

Anyway, this man was clearly very angry with us, and we were still at a loss as to why this might be. The very angry man was insisting we leave our apartment and come with him. UH, ARE YOU KIDDING ME? NO WAY! I'VE SEEN BROKEDOWN PALACE. The very angry man finally leaves and by this point we somewhat understand he is mad about the trash. We contact our co-teacher online to find out the deal, and she explained they have strict trash rules in Korea, rules they take extremely seriously. Oh, that would have been nice of someone to tell us about as we hauled out other people's trash from our apartment for three days.

Lesson Learned.

Almost.

20 minutes after that run-in, the very angry man is knocking on our door again. I look through the peephole and tell Heather I am not opening the door. "Elisse, you have to!" "But, he has someone with him!" "And...I'm pretty sure he has all of our trash." I am not kidding. This security guard and his buddy hauled back up all of our trash, to the 7th floor.

Square One.

Update: Two weeks later, we have finally figured out the trash system in Korea. Its ridiculous, but at least we are in on the absurdity now.