One of the most interesting people that I’ve researched — they’re all fascinating, but Beethoven had a lot of personality quirks and a lot of problems with his neighbors. Beethoven actually had to move about once a year because of so many complaints from his neighbors. He played his music in the middle of the night, the same thing over and over again. Drove the neighbors crazy.
Wasn’t big on personal hygiene. Really didn’t care about clothes or his hair — keeping clean clothes. His friends — he did have friends, because he was a very charismatic person — they would try to help him out. When he would fall asleep, they would take his old, crusty clothes away and bring in a new suit of clothes for him to wear the next day. He’d put on the new clothes and would not notice that there had been a change. So, [he] just was not into his clothes. Kept food around his apartment ‘til it got old and moldy and very smelly. Kept a pot by his piano so he didn’t have to go far when he had to go to the bathroom.
