Neighbor Wars·
THE FLOOR ABOVE
A downstairs tenant clashes with a new upstairs neighbor over an unauthorized hardwood install, turning a quiet building into a battleground of noise and petty retaliation.
Should the narrator have said yes?
Be one of the first to vote.
The first sign was the sound of footsteps from upstairs, then came the flooring itself, discovered in a chunk left right by the narrator's door.
About a year and a half ago, a new neighbor moved into the apartment above and immediately asked for permission to install hardwood floors. In that building, any change like that required approval from the people below, so the narrator answered no. The reason was simple: the place was already echoey and loud, and hardwood would only make it worse.
The neighbor did it anyway.
At first, it was just the sound. Every step carried through the ceiling, unmistakable and constant, proof that the upstairs apartment no longer had carpet. The narrator could hear the difference immediately, even without seeing what had changed. The request had been denied, but the remodel went ahead.
A few months ago, building management checked and confirmed what the noise had already suggested: hardwood had been installed throughout the apartment. That meant a problem for the upstairs neighbor, because the building required the flooring to be changed back to carpet. Management gave her a deadline.
Then the neighbor asked to meet with the narrator.
What happened next was a lot less civil than the paperwork. According to the narrator, the neighbor "basically blew up" and screamed that the narrator had "ruined her life." The complaint was directed at the person who had refused permission in the first place, even though the neighbor had installed the hardwood anyway.
The deadline day arrived with one more twist.
By the narrator's door, there was a piece of the neighbor's flooring, an actual chunk of the hardwood, left behind like a message. Written on it were the words "long story short," followed by "Happy new year!" The note was passive-aggressive, but the object itself did the talking: a slice of the floor, delivered to the person who had said no from the beginning.
After a year and a half of footsteps overhead, a management check, a forced flooring change, and an angry confrontation, the story ended with the neighbor's hardwood landing at the narrator's doorstep.