The Complaint Draft

For three evenings, music from the flat upstairs had interrupted Tomas's work. On the fourth, he wrote a message to the building group. It described his neighbour as selfish and asked why some people thought the whole building belonged to them.

Before sending it, Tomas showed it to his partner. She agreed that the noise was a problem but asked what result he wanted. He said he wanted to work in peace.

"Then ask for something that would make that possible," she replied.

Tomas saved the message as an unsent draft and went upstairs. His neighbour, Elise, was practising for a music examination. She had assumed the sound would not travel far because she had put a thick rug on the floor.

They listened from Tomas's flat while a recording played upstairs. Elise was surprised by how clearly it could be heard. She offered to practise earlier, while Tomas was at his office, and use a rehearsal room at weekends.

The agreement needed adjusting once or twice. Tomas also learned that his late-night washing machine disturbed the bedroom below him.

He kept the original complaint as an unsent draft. Reading it later, he could still understand the anger. What he could not find in it was an arrangement that anyone could follow.