Have you ever lived in an apartment where he sounds like the upstairs neighbor is running an in-house bowling alley?

This angry tenant wasn’t exactly bowling, but he did come up with a clever alternative.

Let’s see what all the fuss is about…

Oh, you can hear that?

I used to live in a really great art deco era apartment building that had high ceilings, lots of built-ins, window seats and terrazzo floors.

The neighbors were mostly great and noise wasn’t too bad, though certain sounds really resonated on those floors unless area rugs were put down.

Sounds idyllic, right?

We had a great DnD campaign going and met up Tuesdays and Fridays.

Two guys in particular are important here: let’s call them Mark and Ricardo.

Mark was private about his personal life.

We didn’t know much about him at all– his relationship status, what he did for work, or the usual things one typically knows about one’s friends, just that he was fun as heck and reliable and the kind of guy you like to have at the table.

Ricardo on the other hand was an open book.

He was loud and opinionated, had a different boyfriend every week, drank too much, drove a Mini Cooper even though he was a big dude and dressed as his ttrpg characters sometimes when he went to Applebee’s but he also showed up for long campaigns so, okay.

An odd couple for sure… but that’s not necessarily bad.

Then Ricardo started trying to “out” Mark. To everyone we knew.

Mark was a closed book about his romantic preferences one way or another– I don’t know if he was gay or hetero– but he was not interested in Ricardo or his drama regardless.

Ricardo would also come on to him in ways that anyone would consider harassing and rude.

Mark was the only one who wasn’t lit on fire about this.

Until somebody takes things too far.

Rest of us told Ricardo basically to shut up or leave us alone.

Ricardo would then get dramatic and say the stress was making him lose sleep, but kept being a jerk in subtle ways when the rest of us weren’t around.

Kicking someone off a long running campaign is a last resort.

Usually you want someone to reform or quit, friends on the DM. Mark was our DM and he wasn’t there yet.

Giving Ricardo the boot was against the ethos of the game… so what could they do?

Then Ricardo started hearing the… noises.

See, Ricardo lived right below me.

He said it was my high-heeled shoes, but I don’t wear high-heeled shoes. I was staying at my boyfriend’s house and wasn’t home.

He even had maintenance check my place, and others adjacent, and ceilings and such, but nothing was found amiss.

He’d complain about clicking noises, ball bearings, at all hours when he was trying to sleep.

And loud.

He wasn’t looking too good.

Huh… a real mystery was afoot.

I looked clueless and made sympathetic noises.

I was studying psychology and suggested he should see his doctor.

This went for about four more months.

Yet socially inept Ricardo kept being a jerk and Mark kept being chill.

Finally Ricardo surprised us all.

He was moving. Next week.

After he vacated his place, I brought the crew up to my apartment.

Rolled up the rug.

Threw down the cat toys.

Including the homemade and very loud ones.

The steel ones that rolled across the floor.

The ones that rattled in the little cage things.

Mystery solved. Cat’s outta the bag.

Watched the cats chase them all over the bare terrazzo floors as they had been doing for the past nearly six months right over Ricardo’s place.

When I’d get home, I’d just pick them up and put the rugs back and no one knew.

While we all had beers.

I’d drink to that kind of subtle victory too.

Do you think they did the right thing or should they have confronted Ricardo to his face?

Let’s see what the comments have to say.

One user thinks this was a purrfect plan.

Another thinks Ricardo got was what coming to him.

This person knows cats can make a big impression.

This person is most impressed by the cat wrangling.

Another commenter hopes the prank hit the Mark.

This DnD group didn’t want to be catty.

But in the end, they couldn’t help it.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.