Roommate Hell·
THE MIDNIGHT CREAK
A downstairs renter battles nightly bed creaking from a couple upstairs, weighing how to address the noise without cutting into anyone's privacy.
Should they mention it or change rooms?
Be one of the first to vote.
Every night around midnight, the bed above one renter starts creaking, and it is not hard to guess what is happening upstairs.
The poster says a female roommate, 25, has her room directly above theirs, and that the timing has become its own kind of alarm clock. "This roommate (F25) who has her room right above me" reportedly "likes to get on with her boyfriend (26) every night at around 12-1am," the poster wrote. The sound that carries through the ceiling is the same one each time: "I keep hearing the bed creaking."
For the person downstairs, the problem is not mystery, it is timing. They say they usually go to sleep around the same hour the couple gets started, which means the noise lands right on top of bedtime. "I usually go to sleep around that time," the poster explained, adding that the nightly interruptions are making it harder to settle down.
The poster does not want to simply shift their own schedule to accommodate the apartment's overnight activity. "I don't want her to be the reason why I have to go sleep earlier," they wrote, making clear they are frustrated at the idea of adjusting their routine just to work around the room above.
That leaves the awkward part: bringing it up at all. The poster says they are "not sure what I should do about this," and that "It feels weird to mention it to her." Still, the issue is now happening every single night, and the sound is loud enough that it is keeping them aware of what is going on upstairs well past lights-out.
In the end, the complaint is simple and specific: a roommate's nightly sex, at 12 to 1 a.m., is coming through the floor as bed creaks and keeping the person below from sleeping. The poster closes with the question hanging over the whole situation: "What do I do??"