Strange noises

A few years ago we heard strange crackling in the wall. Thought it was electrical. But it was a leaking outside water pipe under patio next to house

kircubbin2000

When I lie down on bed I often hear a noise like the helicopter overhead. I have even looked out to see if the police or coastguard are up.
I don't hear it in other rooms and can't work out what it is.

Is this where we retail off inexplicable noises inside our house?

I've heard helicopter noise in my (last) house before now. So loud that it woke me up - at around midnight. The problem was that, when I looked out, there actually was a helicopter or two directly up above my house and they were black ones. So I could see the outlines and those outlines and the noise were defo helicopters. Cue for me phoning the police the next day to complain (as they sometimes sent up a police helicopter up flying - but not black ones), the military (ditto) and everyone said "Not us gov" to me. That made it even more worrying that this had happened and it went on for about 30 minutes and they were black ones.

Though that house was a bit "odd" in some ways I felt - as another time I went to bed early in the back bedroom (Victorian terrace - and therefore had alcoves in the bedrooms). A very noisy factory machine started up - I knew it was a factory machine because a teacher had given us a tour of a factory as a teenager (I think we all got the message to work hard at our studies) and it was like that. Cue for me looking all round my house including up in the attic and it was only in that alcove only in that room and no visible cause at all for it! Yep...checked with the neighbour that side too and nowt to do with him either. Cue for me being frightened obviously but pragmatic enough to decide I'd go to sleep in my other bedroom and, if I woke up in the night, I'd check my own bedroom to see if the noise had stopped and I could move back in there. I duly checked halfway through the night - and it had stopped!

So - just to say there can also be inexplicable noises as well as ones with a logical explanation.

Do you have a timer on a lamp? I was sitting wondering what the weird ticking noise was that I could hear and that’s what it was. Quite an old timer, although working perfectly, it just started ticking.

RosiesMaw2

My friend’s sister in law lives in a semi-sheltered flat and is forever complaining about noise from the people above her - tv, footsteps etc. She is also convinced they are somehow spying on her.

She lives in a top floor flat.

I regret to say that this is typical behaviour of someone with dementia.

gentleshores

My experience of crackling paper sounds is it's usually a mouse!

I agree.

Mice can get inside chairs and sofas, sometimes the stuffing may be crunchy or there may be some paper that's slipped down the back.

Sometimes birds above chimney pots, we have had that sound. I thought they were actually in the chimney or loft but no on top of chimney pot

Old House ,when did you have the electrics checked, or upgraded, my first thought

Many years ago I was in a newsagents and there was a phone ringing, on and on. I looked at the salesgirl, puzzled as to why she didn't answer it, and she, catching the look, said " that phone rings constantly; they've taken out walls and looked everywhere, no phone, and the telephone company have no explanation!". There are certainly strange things.

I frequently hear the cats when they are both out! Whether this is my memory playing tricks, or their predecessors coming home from the hereafter for a visit I do not know.

I have one of the new cat-flaps programmed to only allow my two cats chip numbers to open it, so it cannot be neighbouring cats.

I would not ignore the sound of crackling paper - as it is most likely to be an electrical fault.

Try turning your reading lamp off, as nine o'clock approaches and see if you still here the sound. If you do, then the next even switch of a different lamp. Or have the electrician in to check all the sockets, lamps and plugs.

Farmor15

We've had a strange sound come from upstairs around 9 or 10 at night. Sounds like the cat jumping off a bed, but happens when cat is out! Also heating could be on or off, though probably related to temperature change.

Often, while I'm in bed, a cat jumps upon my bed and pads around until it's comfy, then lies there quiet as anything.
The trouble is, we do not have a cat and there are none that come in our house - it fair freaked me out the first few times!!

Oooh, mulberry7, I wonder if they ever found that ghostly phone?

Oreo

Do you have DC or DGC who might play little pranks on you? If yes, it could be a noise gadget attached to the underside of something and timed to go off at certain times!

If not, you could have all noise muted at around the time you hear it and be sitting - on the floor - or standing where you hear it ready to pounce on it!
It would drive me nuts until I found it!!

Not crackling, but at 4.30am when I got back from the loo I heard a humming sound every ten minutes. In the end I got up to see where it was loudest. No idea. No more sleep either.

I have a humming noise in the house. If I go outside I can’t hear it. I have been all round the house turning electrical items of. Sometimes I can feel a vibration in the chair I sit in. It seems to go overnight and it is quiet in the morning and starts either early evening or upto 8 pm. We live in a very old stone built house and have no neighbours. Ear plugs don’t help.
Has anybody got any ideas what it might be? I don’t think it is tinnitus as the tinnitus I have is a very high pitched ringing and is constant
I sympathise with you Oreo. Unidentified sounds are so annoying. Hope you sort your out soon.

It is really hard to find the cause of noises if you wear hearing aids like I do. I recently had a loud sound in the house but could not find where it came from The visitor next day found it, it was the new valve on one of the radiators which was rattling, when the water was going through. really worrying when you live alone, I do hope you find your cause soon.

Unidentified sounds are very worrying. A few months after I moved into this old farmhouse I woke up one night to hear a really loud scratching sound ( was like claws scratching the hessian back of a carpet). It totally freaked me out! It didn't sound like mice and if it was a rat it was a gigantic one. I was on edge for the rest of the night. When I told my dil the next day she said she knew exactly what it was and played me a recording she had made of a noise in their house - exactly the same sound! It was icecracking and falling down the chimney! When I was telling the story to my friend and her husband they both said " ice in the chimney" when I described the sound as they had the same thing on their house! I had never heard of ice in a chimney before but it was a scary sound. Living alone in a rural location can be a bit unnerving when there are strange noises - horses can be very heavy footed when thundering down the field!

I can hear a humming sound too, when I go to bed.

I heard a sound like paper rustling and crinkling once and it turned out to be a wasp nest in the loft but I think it's the wrong time of year now.

I could always hear a builder tapping away, must have been across the way as sound travels along a solid surface. Regular even taps, like putting nails in.

It was always when I was upstairs in my sewing room. I saw the culprit today, young jackdaw, not his partner, he was tapping into an acorn with his beak, holding it between his feet at the top of a solid fence post.

He stands on my ridge tiles and does the same tapping, my garden is strewn with acorns with holes, never used to get any and there are no oak trees nearby. This jackdaw has befriended me and my garden. It has never happened in the five years I have been here. He is very clever, chose to tap the acorn against something hard

Yours oreo does sound like mice, if it was higher up it could be rat, squirrel or bat. If there is a cavity wall it could well be a rat, they create tunnels

Thanks to all for your tips and stories, am certainly not the only one with unidentified noises🤔
DP is presently watching footie which is loud and will drown out any little crinklings and cracklings, but what I plan to do is to put the main light on rather than the few lamps, in case it’s a lamp.We had the house checked and the electrics brought up to date about 14 years ago, but it could be an individual lamp.
If not then it’s a mouse or some tiny creature.
It’s a bit unnerving when you don’t know the cause, but most noises do have an innocent or at least logical explanation.
The cat on the bed and the phantom phone experiences are very intriguing.

Milest0ne

I have a humming noise in the house. If I go outside I can’t hear it. I have been all round the house turning electrical items of. Sometimes I can feel a vibration in the chair I sit in. It seems to go overnight and it is quiet in the morning and starts either early evening or upto 8 pm. We live in a very old stone built house and have no neighbours. Ear plugs don’t help.
Has anybody got any ideas what it might be? I don’t think it is tinnitus as the tinnitus I have is a very high pitched ringing and is constant
I sympathise with you Oreo. Unidentified sounds are so annoying. Hope you sort your out soon.

Try googling "The Hum". It is a noise that only a very few people can hear and there's some places more prone to it than others - eg Bristol I gather. I heard it once for a few days in my last house (in a small city). I checked all round my house to start with for the source of the noise obviously. I then went up and down my street and could still hear it. That got me worried - ie in case it was tinnitus. So I decided to check what radius I could hear the noise up to and I was able to walk a noticeable distance from my house and still hear it. By that time = I was seriously worried it was my body. But I got on a bus and went to a village about 3 miles out and walked round it carefully listening - and no Hum! Very thankful to have proved it wasn't my own body at fault and I then set to complaining to all possible sources of The Hum (ie starting with one of those electric substations situated near my house). It took a few days before The Hum stopped and I never knew whether one of the places I complained to was the guilty party and had dealt with it or what. Very thankful it had stopped anyway - as I was all gearing myself up to sell the house and move to one where I wouldnt hear it and I couldnt afford to move.....so that would have been problematic (as it was only a starter house and in mid-type condition - as I knew it wasnt worth fully renovating a place I regarded as a "temporary step on the ladder" as from Day 1 in it.

I heard a strange tapping noise very occasionally in my kitchen for months. Thought it was cental heating radiator or gas boiler. One night heating was off so not that. I live next to a cemetery so wondered if we were haunted but dismissed that as nonsense. One evening OH felt peckish and reached in the cupboard for his cereal. A what we thought was a mouse jumped out and disappeared behind the cupboard. The newish cereal packet was almost empty. We put a trap in the cupboard and caught a rat. Don't know how it got in probably from an open back door or up the downstairs toilet. Never seen another or heard any noises since.
It's most likely mice or rats. Set a trap in the room for a few days to check.