The Noisy Upstairs Neighbor
A free B1-level English story for language learners, readable online in English, with an option to listen via the free Storyteller app.
Amara loses sleep over late-night noise from her upstairs neighbor and finally solves the problem with a respectful conversation.
Amara had lived in her apartment for two years, and she had always liked it. The only problem was the noise from upstairs. Every night around eleven, heavy footsteps crossed the ceiling above her bedroom.
At first, she told herself it was nothing. But the footsteps continued, night after night, and sometimes furniture scraped across the floor too. Amara stopped sleeping well, and she started dreading the sound of eleven o'clock.
She thought about calling the building manager, but she worried it might make things awkward with her neighbor. She had never even met him properly, though she knew his name was Brendan from the mailboxes.
One Saturday morning, Amara saw Brendan in the hallway, carrying groceries. She took a breath and decided this was her chance. "Hi, I'm Amara, from downstairs," she said. "Do you have a minute?"
"Sure," Brendan said, setting his bags down. "Is something wrong?"
"I don't want this to sound like a complaint," she said carefully. "But I've been hearing noise late at night, around eleven. It's been hard to sleep."
Brendan looked surprised, then a little embarrassed. "Oh, that's probably me. I work night shifts, so eleven is when I get home and start moving around. I had no idea it carried that much."
"I figured it was something like that," Amara said. "I wasn't sure if you knew."
"I really didn't," Brendan said. "Now that I know, I'll be much more careful. Let me get some rugs for the floor, and I'll try to keep things quieter after ten."
"That would help a lot," Amara said, relieved. "Thank you for not being weird about this."
"Honestly, thank you for telling me instead of just being annoyed," Brendan said. "I'd rather know."
A week later, Amara noticed the footsteps had softened, and the scraping sound was gone completely. She still heard him occasionally, but it no longer kept her awake.
The next time they crossed paths by the mailboxes, Brendan smiled. "Sleeping better?" he asked.
"Much better," Amara said. "Thanks for the rugs."
