Almost met my demise through an easily avoidable mistake

I know this story isn't particularly unusual but I just wanted to reiterate the dangers of talking to your neighbors in an apartment if you live alone. I've been living by myself for now almost 3 years and I can't stress enough how important OPSEC is. I have a small balcony on the side if my apartment and my next door neighbors are my seniors. When I lived in my parents house I had a small pond in my backyard with 2 carps and one day I opened the gate of the pond to clean the water and one of my carps jumped out and didn't survive. My dad, who is an avid fisherman, told me he'd leave the dead carp in a bucket of salted water on the porch and then pickle it the next day. Fast forward to the next day, dad forgot to pickle the carp and it started to rot. I thought that was the end of the story but the next day when we went outside the smell was so horrible that dad started to dig a hole in our backyard to bury the carp. When he was done with the hole he realized that it was time to go to work and said "fuck it, I'll bury the carp tonight when I get home". I guess you can already see where this is going. I was bored after school and I went outside to watch tv in my room. I opened the sliding door to my room and was greeted with a horrible smell. I thought that the smell came from the pond but then I found a dead magpie next to my pond. I thought that it was just a coincidence and grabbed the bug and threw it in the hole my dad dug in the morning. By that point I was sure that the smell came from the bug but I still went outside to watch tv. Fast forward to after dinner. All of my family members (except my dad, who was at work) went to bed. When we woke up the next morning my dad was already at work but when he came home he told us that he was very confused because he didn't remember digging the hole but he remembered burying the bug but he was suspicious because he was sure that the bug was already decayed when he threw it in the hole. What happened was that the dead bug fell into the hole my dad dug, and because of the smell coming from the bug I thought the smell came from my pond. After I threw the bug in the hole, I went back outside to watch tv despite the horrible smell still being present. It turned out that the bug's smell attracted a bunch of carrion flies that then made their way into my room through the open sliding door. <br><br>This event was my wake-up call. I realized that if these flies were bees or killer bees or wasps I would've been dead because if I didn't notice the dead bug I definitely wouldn't have noticed a swarm of bees through the open door to my room. <br><br>Fast forward to present day. I moved out of my parents' place not too long ago and got an apartment of my own. I'm pretty introverted and don't really talk to anyone. I'm 23M and I'm pretty sure my next door neighbors are seniors, probably 70+ years old. They're very chatty and often initiate conversations with me when I leave the apartment or when I'm coming back home. I'm usually pretty short with seniors because I'm pretty sure they don't really care about my day. Usually it's just <br><br>"Hey! How are you?" - "I'm fine thank you! How about you?" - "I'm fine thank you"<br><br>But this couple is different. Whenever I have this <br><br>"Hey! How are you?" - "I'm fine thank you! How about you?" - "I'm fine thank you"<br><br>conversation with them, the wife usually goes something like <br><br>"Well don't you ever feel lonely living alone?" <br><br>And I'm like "not really" but then they initiate another round of small talk and I'm stuck with them for like 10 mins which is fucking annoying but I usually don't say anything because I'm not confrontational. <br><br>Last week I was coming home from work pretty late, I think it was around 2am. I was very drunk and tired and all I wanted was to go to sleep. I watched the short conversation between us happen before it happened and I thought "fuck, why me?". I just wanted to go to sleep. When I walked out the elevator the husband greeted me and started walking towards me with a smile on his face. I didn't want to be rude but I was very annoyed and if I had been sober I would probably have just ignored him but this drunkenness made me a little bit more "pro-social" so I decided to engage with him. He asked me again if I didn't feel lonely and I was already walking away towards my apartment when he started saying something about something coming through my window if it's open. I watched the short conversation between us happen before it happened. I knew that I'd have to hear him out if I didn't want to be rude, and then I had to reply and then we both had to say our goodbyes and if I was lucky it would probably be over in 5 mins. I was already walking away from him and he already said something about something coming through my window if it's open so I thought "fuck it" and I closed my balcony doorloudly and said "don't worry, I closed it" and went inside my apartment and closed the door. The husband looked quite confused and was probably wondering what just happened. Usually when you talk to someone you can finish the conversation without any issues but if you close a door in someone's face they will probably be confused and wonder why you closed the door. I guess the husband realized that I wasn't in the mood to talk and he went back to his apartment. This was very unusual for me because I'm usually not rude, and if I am there's always a good explanation but in this case I was just annoyed. <br><br>The next day I opened my balcony door again to get some fresh air and when I was closing it later that night, I noticed there was a small, 1 inch gap between the frame of the balcony door and the balcony door itself. I remember the husband saying something coming through my window if it's open and I'm pretty sure he meant my balcony door. <br><br>If the husband didn't talk to me and if I didn't close the balcony door loudly there's a good chance that a wasp would've flown through that 1 inch gap and stung me to death. I know this sounds like a bullshit story but living alone in an apartment is just as if not even more dangerous than going camping in the wilderness. The only difference is that you're alone. I've been living alone for a long time and until now I thought that the only danger of living alone is not being there to save you.