Location: cell phone dying    

My sister had left her cell phone at our house, and every few minutes it would jingle a bit. Maddening!

Iceland
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 12:34 am

Location: A faint beep    

I keep hearing a faint beep, about 2 or 3 times a week. It doesn't happen at the same time each day. I still haven't figured it out.

Italy
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 2:04 am

Location: Smoke detector    

Chirp... (five minutes of silence) Chirp... (three seconds of silence) Chirp... (an hour of silence). Seems to stop doing it in the cold. I need to replace that battery!

Guyana
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 2:19 am

Location: Factual Correction    

Aluminium doesn't rust

Vatican City
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 2:45 am

Location: Correction of a factual correction...    

Actually aluminium does rust/oxidize, creating a very hard and impervious aluminium oxide outerlayer. That's what stops it from oxidizing any further, but sometimes something can break through that layer, like electrolysis with another type of metal flake or particle, which will allow it to oxidize further under that hard outer layer, making white flakes usually...

South Africa
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 2:58 am

Location: Correction of a factual correction... Continued...    

... That vent is more likely made of galvanized metal plate which is resistant to rust, but will eventually succumb to it.

South Africa
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 3:02 am

Location: Very low toned intermittent noise that sounded like a horn    

On rainy/misty days when there was little or no wind, or it was westerly. I would mimmick the tone and intervals as well. Many years later on a tour to Robben Island, mist came over and I heard it very loudly, tourbus drove past the mist horn as it was bellowing to passing ships. I was finally vindicated(nobody else could hear it) because the tone and intervals matched... phew..

South Africa
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 3:14 am

Location: A very intermittant beep-de-beep-beep    

Went mad looking for it, as narrowing down the search area took hours thanks to the break inbetween beeps. Turned out to be the low battery warning for a key-finder gadget.

Norway
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 4:28 am

Location: My camera phone taking pictures in my pocket    

I have a flip phone, and the shutter button on the side is set up so if you pres and hold it, it will enter camera mode while the phone is closed (for self-portraits, I guess--you can see the image on the external screen). Since I'd changed the shutter sound to a single beep, there were a few days where I kept hearing an intermittent beep that seemed to come from the right and below me.

United States
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 5:15 am

Location: creepy rustling noises    

They seemed like someone walking with wool socks rubbing them on the floor. Turns out my home had very weird acoustics and it was the janitor brooming 4 floors below...noticed it because it always happened about 6.30-7 am

Argentina
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 5:48 am

Location: Scratching, scratching, scratching    

I heard a scratching sound over my bathroom in the triplex where we rented (middle floor). I figure it was mice or (gulp!) rats. It got louder every day until we finally had an exterminator come, and took out a family of .... RACOONS! They had got between the floors and were having a grand time destroying the house.

Marshall Islands
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 6:21 am

Location: Train whistle    

I live in Citrus Heights (Sacramento County), the nearest train tracks are in Roseville, yet seemingly every other night I'd hear this train whistle that sounded like it was only a couple blocks away. Turns out one of the redneck wanna-be's here had outfitted their Enormo-Truck with a train whistle for a horn. What an a**hole.

United States
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 6:42 am

Location: Ice maker    

Neither of us had lived in a house with an ice maker until last year, and we still get spooked when it makes new ice and drops it into the tray. "What IS that??" "Oh yeah, it's the ice maker."

Iceland
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 6:44 am

Location: gurgle    

It was the stomachs of all my neighbors...

Afghanistan
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 7:20 am

Location: Sump Pump    

We'd never lived in a house with a sump pump before and the first week, it rained a bit and the sump pump kept going off and freaking us out. We started calling it the smoke monster like on Lost.

United States
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 7:20 am

Location: Makita Boom Box battery dying.    

Thing would beep once every few hours. Did this for about a week. The beep was non directional and I spent quite a long time trying to figure this out.

Afghanistan
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 7:36 am

Location: Vague intermittent electrical buzzing, like in movies when power lines get shorted    

It was my cell phone, on vibrate mode, sitting on a wooden shelf in the next room. Freaked me out for a whole day

New Zealand
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 7:51 am

Location: GPS (while stored in the closet)    

Every 3 weeks or so, our GPS will turn itself on and begin giving us directions - "Right Turn Ahead". At least it was easy to figure out what piece of technology was making the noise!

Dominican Republic
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 7:53 am

Location: Kids toy with dying batteries    

A couple of years ago, my ex and I woke up in the middle of the night to a "possessed sound" coming from the kids toy box. She made me dig until I found it, then made me put it outside. Was really creepy; a kids song in super slow motion from a toy no one was playing with.

United States
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 7:56 am

Location: Air filter in the heater return vent.    

Every time the heater turns off in our house, it is followed by a haunting, metallic thump. I figured out that the air filter in the cold air return vent in the hallway ceiling was not a tight enough fit. When the air comes on, it sucks the filter up and when it turns off the filter falls back down onto the grate. My solution was to put an old sock along the edge of the filter.

United States
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 8:02 am

Location: High pitched squeal    

We'd usually only hear it at night when everything got quiet. Hunted all over the house. Turned out to be the turbine vent on the house behind ours. Still going on, but knowing is half the battle.

United States
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 8:10 am

Location: Seconding the "kids toy with dying batteries"    

I've had that happen twice and it is indeed, freaky.

Thailand
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 8:18 am

Location: Birds nesting in the bathroom exhaust vent    

Kept hearing a scratching/fluttering sound coming from the wall in or near our bedroom. After spending quite a bit of time with my ear pressed against the wall, I finally located the sound eminating from the master bathroom wall... and specifically the exhaust fan vent. Evidently a pair of birds had found that to be the ideal location to set up their home.

United States
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 8:38 am

Location: VERY high pitched squeal coming from one side of the bedroom    

It happened late at night (around 11pm) a few days a week. Eventually noticed it was also coming from the same side of the living room. Opened the front door and it was louder, so it was obviously coming from outside. Finally roamed around in the front yard with a flashlight and found some kind of filter for the sprinklers that was bad.

Croatia
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 8:48 am

Location: A loud whistle or howl caused by the sprinkler system.    

It only happened at 3am so it took me a while to finally get up and check it out. Just needed to replace a pipe that had cracked in the valve box. It was blowing air through the crack, making the sound of a elementary school recorder but much much louder.

Spain
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 9:18 am

Location: windows in extreme cold    

I live in Wisconsin and my windows occasionally make a very loud cracking sound when its cold outside. I'm not sure why.

England
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 9:43 am

Location: creaky-whisphery sound    

Started up one night while the husband was out of town. Weird sound started in the middle of the night and woke me up. It would stop, but then start up again whenever I closed my eyes and was laying on my right side. Thought I was hallucinating, but it turned out to be a frog outside the window with uncanny timing.

United Kingdom
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 9:44 am

Location: A rapid rattling sound that would wake us up in the middle of the night    

Turns out it was caused by an internal instruction label that had come partially unglued inside the motor cavity of our refrigerator. It has slipped in the way of the cooling fan and was rubbing up against that. I have no idea why it only went off at night. It was a pretty easy fix though; I just ripped the label off.

New Zealand
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 10:06 am

Location: Popping/dripping noise in the bathroom    

Heard it one night after we went to bed shortly after moving in. We thought it was a dripping sink, but it turns out it was the plastic cover on the light fixture. When the lights were on, it would get warm and after they were turned off, it was the plastic cooling down and flexing back to its original shape.

Bahrain
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 10:11 am

Location: A clunk every ten minutes or so while sitting on the back porch.    

The ice machine to an old refrigerator sitting outside. It wasn't hooked up to a water line, but would still try to make ice. Resulted in a search all around the backyard one night until it was found.

Tanzania
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 10:26 am

Location: An idiotic blather on the airwaves    

It turned out to be Sarah Palin

United States
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 10:36 am

Location: water drip in downspout    

Like Rob I had very loud drips. My local Hardware store sold me a small plastic device specifically for this problem. It was a small rectangle of plastic with small bumps (somewhere between the softer "loop" half of velcro and astrotruf) but the sticky back never held so I had to shove it back in after any strong rain.

Benin
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 10:47 am

Location: Crazy maniacal serial-killer-style laughter    

Again, a kid's toy (in this case a Gravedigger monster truck) with dying batteries. Had to put that one outside, under a plastic bin.

United States
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 11:19 am

Location: An idiotic blather on the airwaves    

"It turned out to be Sarah Palin" - That's interesting that you heard that but haven't heard any of the mindless dithering and blather coming from Team Obama, Pelosi or Reid over the last year...

United States
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 11:36 am

Location: Owl    

I once heard an owl around 4am, thought it was in our kitchen. Turns out, it was sitting on top of the stove hood exhaust vent (on the roof), hooting away. I got a good photo of it before it flew off.

United States
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 11:43 am

Location: A rap rap rapping    

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. `'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door - Only this, and nothing more.' But after a few days we figured out it was the clothes dryer vent outside. When the wind blew just the right way, a flap that keeps animals out of the would bang.

Afghanistan
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 12:31 pm

Location: STILL UNKNOWN    

Right at the head of my bed, there is a tapping sound on my wall, as if somebody was knocking on the wall next to my head. Of course it only happens late at night when I'm trying to sleep! IT'S DRIVING ME CRAZY!!!!

United States
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 12:31 pm

Location: Echo of the neighbor's gutter    

A blank, central wall in the apartment kept making dripping-pinging noises. Eventually realized it only happened in the summer, when the window was open. Finally, we realized it was the rain gutter across the street. The sound somehow echoed across the street and across the room, past where the computers are, on the empty wall. It stopped when we put a bookshelf up against the wall.

Armenia
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 2:36 pm

Location: Indian Powwow Drums Beating    

Every summer when I was young, I would hear a "thump-thump... thump-thump..." from out in the back yard. It would start every 30 minutes and last for five. Turns out an Indian Powwow was responsible from across the street in the park. It took me five years to make the connection.

United States
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 3:15 pm

Location: Pakistan    

It was just Pakistan.

Pakistan
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 3:26 pm

Location: Very loud beep    

Heard a loud beep about every 30 seconds. Eventually tracked it down to the dumpster outside my apartment complex. I thought someone had thrown something that beeps in there until it started doing it on other occasions. I still don't know what the beeping was supposed to indicate. How annoying.

Western Sahara
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 3:39 pm

Location: beep, beep, beep, once every 4 hours    

For three weeks my roomates and I tried to figure out the beeps. I finally found it in our downstairs laundry room-- a stopwatch I used for auto racing had a button jammed against my toolbox!

Tajikistan
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 4:32 pm

Location: high frequency rattling, like a baseball card in spokes    

One night our windows made this high frequency rattle for 2-3 seconds, every few minutes. Sounded like a baseball card in bike spokes, but I couldn't figure out what it was. Turns out some strange changes in air pressure outside (or inside) were forcing the the 3M plastic winter insulation to press against the glass and vibrate like a drum.

India
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 5:53 pm

Location: beep every hour    

There is an old watch somewhere in my bedroom that beeps every hour. It obviously doesn't keep time very well, because it beeps every hour on the half hour.

Eritrea
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 5:53 pm

Location: loud quick short thunk    

BIG Marine Corp Ammo Can - has a great rubber seal and as atmospheric pressure changes the sides kinda bow in or bow out - makes a very mysterious noise that took me about 15 years to figure out where it came from.

United States
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 6:04 pm

Location: loud THUD    

Really a little uncharted island in the Pacific somewhere. I was stranded there and hearing that noise could happen anytime. Finally figured out it was a coconut dropping from a tree into the sand. WILSON!

United States
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 6:07 pm

Location: High pithched beep    

So my roommate tried to prank me by getting an annoy a tron from think geek. I spent weeks looking for the source, becausebhos was a pretty urgent sounding beep. It came at random intervals and just wouldn't stop. I checked everything in hte house until I found of stuck on the back o the washing machine.

Afghanistan
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 7:53 pm

Location: The voices in my head    

Ukraine
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 8:16 pm

Location: Loud high pitched scream that apparently is outside of most other's range of hearing    

I'm known to suddenly look up from what I'm doing when an old CRT TV is turned on and the flyback transformer fires up, but I've also found that I can (un/fortunately) hear things like failing MOSFETs or caps in switching power supplies screaming as they fail. Proves useful at times, such as if a PSU is about to catch fire, but mostly makes me look weird. Oh hay, I hit a character limit!

Canada
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 10:55 pm

Location: Dripping    

I thought that my faucet was dripping, but whenever I checked, it was always shut tight and the tip was dry. Eventually I figured out that it was coming from the sump pump.

Iceland
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 11:09 pm

Location: Eight    

The answer is eight! 20 - 12 = 8

Vatican City
Wednesday 10th of February 2010 11:11 pm

Location: video card cooling fan    

It was a quiet ululation that I was sure was part of the computer game I was playing, Diablo, in the wee hours. It was really creepy smiting evil while tired and groggy. Diablo was the only program I used that stressed the video card enough for the fan to bother spinning. A shot of compressed air, and some bike chain oil and I could go to sleep with good dreams.

Canada
Thursday 11th of February 2010 12:13 am

Location: Fast rattling sound like a card in a bicycle spoke    

Heard it while sitting in the car at intersections, thought it was a leaf in the blower fan. On our way to the camping site, it also sounded while the car was parked and shut off. Found out it was a tie down strap a few millimeters away from the top of the trailer lid which would vibrate as the wind blew across it.

South Africa
Thursday 11th of February 2010 4:26 am

Location: Air duct goes bang    

It's a large rectangular air duct right after it leaves the furnace. When the furnace kicks on, it pushes out one of the sides, makes a small bang that's hard to hear. But then when the air stops, it springs back into place with a bang that sounds like it was punched. It's easy to ignore during the day, but very noticeable at night.

United States
Thursday 11th of February 2010 5:53 am

Location: Thunder    

Every night in the summer after I moved into my new house, I'd hear what sounded like thunder. It was always at the same time (10:00pm,) lasted for only a few minutes, and was never associated with any rain or weather (in fact it would happen when there wasn't a cloud in the sky for miles.) Cause: The nightly 5-minute fireworks display at the King's Island amusement park 5 miles away.

United States
Thursday 11th of February 2010 6:46 am

Location: Curmudgeon    

I knew Rob was a big ol' curmudgeon, I just knew it! (Get those damn kids off my lawn!)

Bhutan
Thursday 11th of February 2010 8:48 am

Location: Fireworks    

The first year living in our new house, my wife and I heard this muffled banging sound. We searched the entire house looking for the cause. We were getting worried enough that we barricaded the basement windows in case someone was trying to get in that way. It turns out that it was the 4th of July and we were listening to the distant fireworks.

United States
Thursday 11th of February 2010 9:57 am

Location: Loud bang! on extremely cold nights    

on exceptionally cold nights we would occasionally hear a loud bang in our house. I've never found out for sure, but I suspect that it was nails shrinking in the cold and pulling themselves out of the wood just enough to reverberate throughout the house.

Canada
Thursday 11th of February 2010 10:55 am

Location: squeaky door    

I'd enter my house, and it would sound like I left the radio on in another room, but it'd always stop like a second or two after I walked in. Ghost radio! It took me a few years to figure it out, when I was bringing a bunch of stuff into the house at once.

United States
Thursday 11th of February 2010 11:07 am

Location: These answers are really incredible    

These are great comments! All of these are so good!

United Kingdom
Thursday 11th of February 2010 11:40 am

Location: A series of three beeps    

We have a 2008 Braun Ambulance that at random times in the shift will set off three beeps in random sets. It will be two sets of beeps one time, one set the next, or three sets each about 15 seconds a part. We have tried to figure it out but over the last five months have kind of given up. (we even read the manual)

Azerbaijan
Thursday 11th of February 2010 11:51 am

Location: Beeping from smoke detector    

After graduating and moving back home, we moved into a smaller place temporarily. We packed up everything and stored a lot of it in a closet. We heard beeping from the closet, and finally figured out it was a smoke detector low on batteries. It took about an hour to find it 'cause it would only beep every few minutes, and we had to wait for the beep to find out which box it was in!

Honduras
Thursday 11th of February 2010 12:11 pm

Location: Weird tweeting/scratching    

We had a weird high-pitched tweeting/scratching. I opened our crawlspace attic to find a pile of bat shit. I assumed that was the problem. I didn't do anything to get rid of the bat, we just moved.

Ghana
Thursday 11th of February 2010 1:32 pm

Location: A beep that sounded almost like the fire detector    

We took the batteries out of the smoke detector and it kept beeping, but at weird intervals. Sometimes not for days at a time. Finally we discovered it was the microwave. It didn't have an error message, and was still working fine, but that beep drove me nuts.

Canada
Thursday 11th of February 2010 1:57 pm

Location: Creepy Voice    

Another Kids toy Creepy low voice, could be heard at random times. Turned out it was a dancing Easter Bunny that sang... batteries were dying and it would randomly start singing... in slow mo, freaked me out a few times cuz it would stop before I found it.

United States
Thursday 11th of February 2010 3:31 pm

Location: really faint buzzy whiny scratchy noise    

Our 20's era house makes a lot of weird noises, but that faint whiny buzzy scratchy noise in the bedroom was a winner. I didn't hear it at first. Slowly, patiently, my wife got me to hear it. And I tracked it down to a part of the wall. It's... it's... bees. They were beating their wings to keep the queen cool. Only time our house ever had A/C. We encouraged them to leave w/ WD40.

Vatican City
Thursday 11th of February 2010 4:43 pm

Location: Thunk. Pop. Creak.    

I thought things were falling over @ nite, but I never find anything have fallen, in the morning. My floor is over 1/4" lower than the doorstep (was even last summer), so I guess I was hearing my house settling. I guess I'll be under my house this spring w/ a 6-ton jack, some shims, and a level.

United States
Thursday 11th of February 2010 7:02 pm

Location: like water trickling in an aquarium    

it sounds like running water - we figured out it was the fridge making the sound. it doesn't dispense water or make ice cubes though, so it's probably about to break.

United States
Thursday 11th of February 2010 10:33 pm

Location: BAM!    

Every once in a while there is this loud knock from the north west corner of my house which I have yet to identify. I don't know if it's unequal cooling of wall materials suddenly shifting, a bald eagle smacking into the window or just someone giving the siding a quick, sharp rap with a hammer. In any case, the sound was not appreciated the night I came home from "Paranormal Activity."

Panama
Friday 12th of February 2010 1:03 am

Location: Sounded like a toilet flushing    

I'd be sitting coding away in the dead of night when it was really quiet, and hear the toilet flush like every 30 minutes or so. Eventually told my wife she musn't go so often, it wastes water. Was standing next to the fridge one night, and heard the flushing as it turned on.Must be the gas starting to circulate after it stood off...

South Africa
Friday 12th of February 2010 5:10 am

Location: IT WAS THE BEATING OF HIS HIDEOUS HEART!    

They KNEW! They were making a mockery of my horror! This I thought, and this I think. But anything was better than this agony! Anything was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die!and now again hark! louder! louder! louder! LOUDER! "Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more I admit the deed!tear up the planks!

United States
Friday 12th of February 2010 6:13 am

Location: Mysterious knocking at door    

'Twas the raven, nevermore.

Great Britain
Friday 12th of February 2010 6:28 am

Location: Water Heater    

When we first moved into our house, on cold nights there would be this awful sound like somebody stomping around on an inner-tube half-filled with water. SQUEEERSH! SQUEEEERSH! It turned out just to be the water heater doing its thing (it's obviously old and needs cleaning), but it sounded like some freak lived in our closet and waited to torment us on cold nights.

Afghanistan
Friday 12th of February 2010 7:20 am

Location: A bird.    

Me and my father in law were inspecting an newly finished, empty house one night when we thought we heard a bird flapping against the windows or roof. after running from room to room for a good 20 minutes, we were in the kitchen when we hear it. Turns out it was the rotating sprinkler hitting the glass every few minutes. Laughed for months...

Australia
Friday 12th of February 2010 7:35 am

Location: Fart machine    

While I was a student my flatmate hid a remote controlled fart machine under the foot of mattress. It went on for days - I would be asleep and then a mysterious noise would wake me up. The trouble was that my flatmate only ever used it to wake me, when I was awake he would stop using it, so I was never able to identify the sound or in fact what sound had woken me up!

United Kingdom
Friday 12th of February 2010 8:38 am

Location: A mysterious whisper    

I turned around to find the thing that made the sound.

Costa Rica
Friday 12th of February 2010 9:45 am

Location: sounded like a toddler running across the roof    

Staying on the top floor of a hotel near Dallas last summer. Every morning I would be awakened by the sound of something large scampering across the roof. Turns out it was a bunch of buzzards running/hopping around.

United States
Friday 12th of February 2010 12:54 pm

Location: Chair wobbling    

Sometimes when going into my kitcken, I thought I heard what sounded like a rubber ball being dropped in the basement. This was at the same time I was watching way too much Ghost Hunters, so I got really freaked out. When I decided to use a logical mind to solve it, I found that sometimes I would bump into a wooden chair, it would then wobble on the tile and stop.

Canada
Friday 12th of February 2010 2:44 pm

Location: Woodpeckers    

I'd awake in the early morning to hear a fast, metallic rattling... like a hammer-drill on sheet metal. The noise would stop when I'd get up to investigate. Eventually discovered it was a woodpecker trying to get into a screened vent under the eaves of my house.

United States
Friday 12th of February 2010 4:03 pm

Location: Our song    

I was telling my SO about this thread. He'd taken me to lunch and when he got home, he kept hearing our song. Not the alarm clock. He was getting a little freaked out. "Seriously, is she beaming the song into my brain?" I'd given him my ipod to load and it wasn't off. It was in his pocket and he couldn't figure out why it never got closer or further away.

United States
Friday 12th of February 2010 8:01 pm

Location: Sounded like plastic grocery bags being crumbled up...    

every time I walked downstairs. Turned out it was my knee making that noise!

Belarus
Friday 12th of February 2010 11:05 pm

Location: Rumble    

American bulldozers driven by religious fanatic regime..

Palestinian State*
Saturday 13th of February 2010 9:14 am

Location: The raindrops    

the raindrops the raindrops the raindrops the raindrops the raindrops the raindrops the raindrops the raindrops the raindrops the raindrops

England
Saturday 13th of February 2010 10:11 am

Location: A regular squeaking sound    

It was actually the air filter.

United States
Saturday 13th of February 2010 1:43 pm

Location: the furnace or the pipes?    

I live in a fairly new apartment building and whenever the furnace turns on I hear a steady, rythmic clicking/thumping sound in the tub drain. Very strange. Haven't figured it out yet.

Mexico
Saturday 13th of February 2010 6:18 pm

Location: Intermittent thumping on window    

I thought it was maybe rain going against the window - but it wasn't raining. I peak around the side of the curtains and there's a giant locust that had somehow gotten inside, crawled into my room and tried to escape via the window but was really just jumping against the window occasionally. It was terrifyingly odd.

United States
Sunday 14th of February 2010 2:40 pm

Location: BANG! BANG! BANG! On the roof. All night long.    

It sounded like kids hitting the walls with sledgehammers. Turned out to be rainwater pooling on the flat roof and freezing overnight.

Canada
Sunday 14th of February 2010 3:58 pm

Location: Thump. Thump. Thump. On the outside wall.    

I used to live in a concrete high-rise. I was woken out of an afternoon by a steady thumping just below my window. Not loud, just unusual. The cause: two girls playing handball.

Canada
Sunday 14th of February 2010 4:01 pm

Location: faint chattering sounds    

went into a quiet room, heard sounds like people chattering. Left and came back half an hour later, still happening. Opened the front door, the lady next door was outside screaming because her husband dropped dead of a heart attack.

Vanuatu
Sunday 14th of February 2010 6:03 pm

Location: Faint ringtone sound....    

I was cleaning the house on the first nice day of spring and I had the windows and patio door open. I kept hearing a faint sound, much like a cell ringtone. I looked around the house and in the couches to see if a friend had left one behind. I realized after stepping outside that it was bagpipes/taps being played in the cemetery behind our house during a funeral service.

United States
Sunday 14th of February 2010 6:39 pm

Location: Tapping.    

There's an unknown tapping noise on the ceiling of my dorm room. We talked to the people who lived here last year and they said that it was there last year. Still have no idea what it is. I'd think it's water, but apparently there's no pipes that run through our ceiling.

The Netherlands
Sunday 14th of February 2010 11:12 pm

Location: Clopping    

We kept hearing a faint clopping sound while sitting on our terrace. Sometimes it was accompanied by a swooshing sound. It took us most of the afternoon sipping wine to figure out that it must be coming from the four riders of the apocalypse who had been predicted to arrive any moment now.

France
Monday 15th of February 2010 2:27 am

Location: drip.drip.drip.drip.drip    

Sounds like a really fast drip, thought it was the lights cooling down at night, but the sound is STILL THERE in the morning. Still to figure that one out.

Scotland
Monday 15th of February 2010 2:46 am

Location: Laughing loudly...    

A prank? We were in the living room, and suddenly= laughter... but loud laughing without tv on, or any computers on.... we live in a house, with neighboors at least 20 meters frome the house... It was at supper time... what the heck is going on? Am I crazy? My wife hears the same thing... so we should'nt be crazy at the same time without knowing it...45 SECONDS OF LAUGHTER... it stops...

Canada
Monday 15th of February 2010 7:06 am

Location: Laughing loudly continued    

It stops while I am searching where the sound comes from... We are scared... My wife set me up, with my brother, that was hiding and covering his mouth with a cloth to pitch the sound.... He even moved a couple of times in the 45 seconds .... going from the basement to the guestroom.... the prick.

Canada
Monday 15th of February 2010 7:09 am

Location: annoying voice on airwaves.    

turned out to be Obama

Brazil
Monday 15th of February 2010 9:50 am

Location: A very soft ringing sound in my home office.    

When I'm working extra hard and the radio is off for optimal concentration I am constantly annoyed and distracted by a very slight ringing noise, like a phone. I'm starting to think it is coming from my fax/printer, but I'm not positive.

United States
Monday 15th of February 2010 10:33 am

Location: kids toy- Sleep 'N' Snore Ernie    

Our daughter's Sleep 'N' Snore Ernie would turn itself on in the middle of the night and say "I Feel Great!" over and over again, which is very disorienting coming over an infant monitor at 4 AM. One time it wouldn't stop so I grabbed it and threw it down the basement stairs, yelling "How do you feel NOW, ERNIE?" after it.

Gambia, The
Tuesday 16th of February 2010 9:30 am

Location: Low Battery Warning on a Water Detector    

I was living in an apartment that had a water heater sealed beneath the kitchen counter (so tenents could not access it). Apparently, the landlord had placed a water detector on the floor behind the water heater (sounds an alarm is there's a leak). In the middle of the night it started beeping (one loud beep every few minutes) - took me forever to find it.

Jamaica
Tuesday 16th of February 2010 11:52 am

Location: Tapping/Dripping    

We have a tapping/dripping sound coming from the fan in the ceiling of our upstairs bathroom. After a few months without seeing any water stains in the ceiling, we started investigating. We opened the fan up and there's a piece of plastic that is affected by wind coming through some exhaust pipes in the roof that kept flapping back and forth, creating the drip sound. Felt should fix it.

Antigua & Barbuda
Tuesday 16th of February 2010 11:58 am

Location: tink...tink...tink...tink...tink...tink...tink...tink...tink    

On a 100 mile bicycle ride (hotter n' hell hundred) I started hearing a tink sound. Finally got off the bike and my air pump had moved just enough to let my crank hit it while I peddled.

United States
Tuesday 16th of February 2010 1:11 pm

Location: sounds of dawn breaking    

1. A machine-gun like metallic noise. Turned out to be a woodpecker hammering on the aluminum gutters - probably signaling to its mate. 2. Creaking and popping on exterior walls. Turns out to be the vinyl siding heating up as the sun rises after a cold night.

Belgium
Tuesday 16th of February 2010 2:38 pm

Location: Ghost in the closet    

I shot it.

United States
Tuesday 16th of February 2010 8:40 pm

Location: cat in a hot tin tube    

My childhood home started making ethereal howls and moans, everywhere at once, which was disconcerting. But not as much as realizing the new kitten is missing, or finding the open heating duct. That Siamese cat could sing the blues. She popped out a few hours later.

Canada
Wednesday 17th of February 2010 2:54 am

Location: WHY DO KIDS' TOYS ALWAYS GO FREAKY AT NIGHT??????????????    

We've had 2 freaky kids toys incidents. One a ride on Thomas the Tank engine. 3am started to hear the chug chug and then the Thomas song that plays when you ride the thing...but no one riding. Another time a baby kick toy..again middle of the night...went off but no one kicking it.....removed batteries in both. Cross yourself and shout "THE POWER OF CHRIST COMPELS YOU!" eerie.

New Zealand
Wednesday 17th of February 2010 5:05 am

Location: wind chimes    

For months after moving into a new apartment we griped about our neighbors' loud windchimes that would keep us up at night. Eventually we realized the sound was coming from our own back porch, left by the previous tenants.

Barbados
Wednesday 17th of February 2010 6:24 am

Location: Watch    

I have an old watch that sometimes i can hear ticking in the bottom of a full drawer... annoying. I have also encountered ticking walls, creaking windows, and a phone vibrating in the upstairs neighbor's bedroom.

United Kingdom
Wednesday 17th of February 2010 1:05 pm

Location: very tinny sounding music    

i woke up several times hearing music that sounded like it was coming from an old mono am radio. i made sure my itunes, ipod, speakers, phone, tv etc were off. days later, i traced it down to a receptacle next to my bed. the conduit is piping my neighbor's tv into my bedroom all night. it makes a funky amplifier into my bedroom. the apt downstairs was empty when i moved in.

France
Wednesday 17th of February 2010 3:42 pm

Location: Meowing, on the roof    

Every morning for about a week I'd wake up and hear a cat mewing on the roof of my 3 story apartment complex in Southern Indiana. After a little investigation, I'm pretty convinced it was a mockingbird that kept me from restful sleep for a good number of weeks. Always a cat sound, never a cat. Youtube of this phenomenon: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yup8slN9FVU

Ireland
Wednesday 17th of February 2010 8:52 pm

Location: That aluminum vent    

Hey, we had the aluminum vent problem just a few weeks ago! For us, it was so high-pitched that it sounded like a pure, electrical tone. I can't quite describe it but, if you've ever pulled the trigger on a power drill just enough for it to make a sound but not enough for it to turn, that's roughly what it sounded like. It drove us nuts for a few days.

Ethiopia
Thursday 18th of February 2010 3:31 am

Location: ... and my car's side mirror    

Far worse, however, was a persistent whistle whenever my Toyota Camry got up to about 70 mph. I'd made several trips from Woodland to LA and it was driving me nuts! I learned how to take apart the door panel but we still couldn't find it. In desperation, we took off the side mirror. The whistling stopped so we shoved some tissues in it, screwed it back on, and it's been gone since!

Ethiopia
Thursday 18th of February 2010 3:36 am

Location: Faint Beep or Chirp    

Every 30 minutes or so I would hear a faint chirp in my kitchen, and I couldn't track it down for the longest time as it would beep only once or twice in an hour, and sometimes not at all. I finally discovered it was the dishwasher concerned about being slightly ajar. I didn't even know that the dishwasher had a beeper.

United States
Thursday 18th of February 2010 8:45 am

Location: ... and a banging/knocking noise    

Every few hours I would hear a knock, like the door, but no one was there. I eventually tracked it to my basement and found it was a pipe which was knocking against the floor supports. Every time a certain leaky toilet would need to refill, the pipe was loose enough to smack against the supports. I bought new gaskets for the toilet, and installed a bracket to hold the pipe better.

United States
Thursday 18th of February 2010 8:49 am

Location: ...and a sporratic ticking in my bedroom.    

Sometimes at night I would hear a creak that sounded like a tick of a watch. I searched through nearby drawers looking for a watch that had been forgotten about, but couldn't find it, or even hear the ticking anymore. So I would lay back down and try to sleep. Eventually I realized that if I lay a certain way, my own heartbeat would shake my bed. If I shifted, it would stop. Weird.

United States
Thursday 18th of February 2010 8:54 am

Location: A "Tsssssssss...." sound like rice spilling on the floor    

So we wake up from hearing a sound in the middle of the night every now and then that sounds like someone is spilling rice all over our kitchen floor. Rice burglars maybe? I've realized that it happens at exactly 3 am every time. I think it might be the sprinklers outside the apartment turning on and sputtering but I'm still not sure. It hasnt happened during winter so that makes sense.

United States
Thursday 18th of February 2010 9:01 am

Location: Creaking floorboards and wall, as if someone was walking across them very slowly.    

Turns out it was garage door beneath me wobbling slightly in the wind.

Korea, North
Thursday 18th of February 2010 4:51 pm

Location: Ticking and tapping noise    

BIRDS IN OUR FRIGGEN ATTIC.... still there.

United States
Thursday 18th of February 2010 6:23 pm

Location: Previous tenant's wireless doorbell    

In my old apartment, a doorbell sound would occasionally ring at random times, sometimes in the wee hours of the morning. This was strange, because the apartment had no pushbutton for a doorbell. It turned out someone had installed a wireless doorbell and left the receiver/doorbell but removed the transmitter/pushbutton. The bell was being triggered by random interference.

Antigua & Barbuda
Thursday 18th of February 2010 9:13 pm

Location: beep    

A strange beep in my bedroom at 4am every morning. Turns out it was a dollar store stopwatch packed away in a drawer. Took me a year to find it, and when I did a promptly broke it in half.

Belgium
Friday 19th of February 2010 12:05 am

Location: WHUNG! WHUNG! WHUNG! WHUNG!    

I have "oil canning" in the return vents of my HVAC. Four loud "WHUNG!" noises when the furnace fan comes on, or goes off. Some previous owner had "fixed" it by putting a register in the return duct RIGHT NEXT TO THE FURNACE!!! Well I closed that off because asphixiating in my sleep might be peaceful but....

Afghanistan
Friday 19th of February 2010 10:05 am

Location: BRRRRRRRRMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM far far away    

We had slow deep humming noise that we couldn't locate. Turned out to be a vibrating men's shaver (Mach 4) that had a tube of toothpaste resting on the ON switch.

United States
Friday 19th of February 2010 12:50 pm

Location: soft clapping    

I once couldn't get sleep when I kept hearing a faint soft clapping-like sound. Window was open so I closed it, didn't help. I tracked the source to my computer desk. Computer was off. I searched for what felt like an eternity. Found a very large and alive moth/butterly inside my printer's hood.

Finland
Friday 19th of February 2010 2:11 pm

Location: 1 am alarm    

while my husband was deployed to Iraq for a year, one of his watches would go off every morning at 1 am.... I still dont know which one it is, but now that he's home I don't seem to hear it anymore

Iraq
Saturday 20th of February 2010 12:12 am

Location: Music in my head?    

While shopping during the holiday season, I heard Christmas songs that never changed in volume, no matter which part of the store I was in. Turns out it was the Pandora on my cell phone in my pocket. I didn't feel REALLY stupid - only moderately stupid.

United States
Sunday 21st of February 2010 9:47 pm

Location: Watch or Alarm Clock    

Its the beep beep beep, beep beep beep of some form of alarm, but I only hear it like, every few weeks. Its been at least a year of sporadic alarms and I still can't find the alarm source. I swear some previous tenant here must have hidden a watch in the walls, because I don't buy watches with alarms and I know where my alarm clocks are.

Australia
Sunday 21st of February 2010 11:25 pm

Location: Footsteps    

It sounds JUST like someone on a floor above is walking around, except there is no floor above me! Its totally random, too, sometimes at night, sometimes during the day.

Sierra Leone
Sunday 21st of February 2010 11:28 pm

Location: ding ding ding ding ding    

It's not constant, but I'd say it goes for at least a couple of hours a day. I can only hear it in the bedroom. It sounds like the dinging sound an older GM car makes when you leave the keys in the ignition and open the door. It's between a G flat and a G. It's been driving me nuts for a few months and I can't locate it for the life of me!

Belize
Monday 22nd of February 2010 3:06 am

Location: My neighbor's TV being on, but muted.    

My bedroom window face my neighbor's living room, they got a brand new 52 inch monster of a TV a few years back. I'm very sensitive to the sounds monitors and televisions make when they are powered on, I can tell if my TV is on from downstairs cooking breakfast, for instance, even if it's just sitting at a blank input screen. For about a week straight I would stalk through my house trying to locate whatever was making that noise. It wasn't disruptive to my sleeping/daily life but I became obsessed. I would talk about it constantly to anyone who would be foolish enough to be within earshot. My solution was to change the orientation of my bed so my head was in an acoustically dead corner relative to the window, problem solved, crisis and mental hospital stay averted.

United States
Monday 22nd of February 2010 5:12 am

Location: Super-high-pitched whine    

Ice maker getting water. No one can hear it but me, and it lasts 10-15 minutes. ANNOYING!

Chile
Monday 22nd of February 2010 2:28 pm

Location: A ceiling fire alarm with low battery    

We spent about 3 months trying to track down a mysterious beep sound coming from the area where my father's office and my room were located. It sounded like it was a UPS (battery backup) going bad and beeping periodically. It ended up being a fire alarm with a low battery buried in a box.

United States
Monday 22nd of February 2010 11:56 pm

Location: A weird fluttering noise in my car only when I was driving    

A leaf stuck in the air intake vents of the hood near the windshield that fluttered when the car was moving. Actually took it to a mechanic who figured it out in about 5 mins. Duh! At least it didn't cost anything to remedy.

Italy
Wednesday 24th of February 2010 2:49 pm

Location: The radiator pipes expanding    

"Kuddderrrump clank clank clank clank clankclankclankclankclank" whenever the heater turns on. You can hear it all over the apartment Not nearly as annoying, however, as....

São Tomé & Príncipe
Thursday 25th of February 2010 3:09 pm

Location: The cat pawing at the door    

I keep my bedroom door closed most of the time. If the cat decides she wants in, she'll flop down on the floor in the hall, stick a paw under the door, grab hold of the bottom of the door, and pull it towards her, banging it against the doorframe until I let her in.

São Tomé & Príncipe
Thursday 25th of February 2010 3:12 pm

Location: swamp cooler float valve, neighbors swamp cooler.    

for the longest time, there was this constant hissing sound, finally realized that the float on my swamp cooler was out of whack, and not shutting off the water fully, so once i fixed that, I kept hearing this humming sound that sounded like my swamp cooler motor was buzzing, took me a month to realize that it was the sound of my neighbor across the street's AC unit running.

Afghanistan
Friday 26th of February 2010 7:25 pm

Location: Loud TICK...TICK...TICK every 30 seconds    

Sounded exactly like someone digging a shallow grave with a pick and shovel. stayed for about 5 months, then quit, eventually returned. found out it had something to do with all the locomotives sitting idle at the railyard behind my house.

Fiji
Saturday 27th of February 2010 3:42 am

Location: same cat problem    

dear person above with the cat thing. i have the exact same problem. the cat lives in the garage and claws the underside of the door to the house, for no apparent reason at 5am. i found that wedging 2 socks in the door while closing it helps, until cat gets stronger.

Uzbekistan
Saturday 27th of February 2010 3:45 am

Location: DING DING DING    

sounds like someone leaving the keys in their ignition for a few seconds, but outside, and seemingly at random. it sounds like its coming from on top of a mountain. then i figured out it was a church bell about a mile away chiming the hour.

Barbados
Saturday 27th of February 2010 3:49 am

Location: da da da doo doo    

Used to hear a soft tinkle of "da da da doo doo" from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" when I lived in Colorado Springs. Then one day I found Richard Dreyfuss kneeling by a crappy fence in the backyard with a rusty windchime blatantly making alien contact...and right under the nose of NORAD....

United States
Sunday 28th of February 2010 9:28 am

Location: An aerosol can of dry shampoo    

Trying to go to bed, I kept hearing this odd repetitive noise, very similar to a car alarm except...not. I even opened my windows, but to no avail, and could not find the source of the noise. Leave room, don't hear it, realise it's in my room, silently freak out for a second, and realise that it's coming from my can of dry shampoo on my dresser....and not an alien ship. Hurrah!

United States
Friday 05th of March 2010 2:58 am

Location: A drilling noise    

At random intervals at all times of day, I keep hearing the sound of drilling. Surely someone in this building can't be constantly drilling walls, so what else could it be?!

United Kingdom
Thursday 11th of March 2010 7:50 am

Location: Bloop    

I live at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Chile, and I keep hearing a blooping sound that I can't figure out.

Chile
Wednesday 17th of March 2010 9:18 am

Location: beeping...    

There are some electronic devices you can buy that make noises. You hide them to drive people crazy! http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/c427/ http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/8c52/ http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/b278/

United States
Wednesday 17th of March 2010 4:08 pm

Location: static... when the radio wasn't on    

Laying in bed reading when I heard it late one night, but the radio wasn't on. Looked at the skylight and saw two glowing eyes staring back. When my husband peeled me off the ceiling we discovered it was a neighbor's cat caught between the screen and open window.

Azerbaijan
Wednesday 17th of March 2010 6:12 pm

Location: Knock knock knock knock knock    

We kept hearing a repetative knock knock knock knock sound, over and over, randomly during the day and night, sounding like someone was knocking on the door. Figured out it was one of the cats who paws the glass bottom of the door to be let in... highly annoying!

United Kingdom
Thursday 18th of March 2010 8:42 am

Location: tinny weak popping noise    

any band that isn't the replacements.

Haiti
Saturday 20th of March 2010 1:55 pm

Location: A plaintive and mournful CLANG, like a single churchbell, every 5-10 minutes any time the neighborhood was otherwise quiet.    

It was a weight attached to a rope on a massive flagpole roughly 1/2 mile away. In a slight wind, the weight strikes the pole just right, and CLANG.

United States
Wednesday 24th of March 2010 1:36 pm

Location: Beep, medium pitch, then about 20 seconds later (If I didn't move!), dull tone    

This was in my new office at work. The first beep would sound and I assumed it was coming from the computer but I could never associate the beep with something the computer was doing. I finally figured it out by sitting completely still after both sounds; about two seconds after the tone, the lights would go out. The sounds were coming from the motion-detecting light switch!

France
Saturday 03rd of April 2010 10:12 pm

Location: LOUD CRACK OUTSIDE MY KITCHEN WINDOW - SAME TIME VERY NIGHT!    

It's been happening every, single night since we moved into this house, 6 years ago. It's a VERY LOUD CRACK/BANG noise right outside our kitchen window ... like a shot - very loud!! I was freaked out for quite a while, but now it's just weird ... and frightening!

United States
Thursday 08th of April 2010 9:22 pm

Location: LOUD CRACK OUTSIDE MY KITCHEN WINDOW - SAME TIME EVERY NIGHT!    

It's been happening every, single night since we moved into this house, 6 years ago. It's a VERY LOUD CRACK/BANG noise right outside our kitchen window ... like a shot - very loud!! I was freaked out for quite a while, but now it's just weird ... and frightening!

United States
Thursday 08th of April 2010 9:23 pm

Location: faint ticking    

When it was very quiet and I was trying to sleep, for weeks I'd hear a faint ticking sound. Eventually figured out it was my watch, which I would place on my new glass topped dresser at night.

Canada
Monday 12th of April 2010 6:11 am

Location: Loud Roaring beginning at 4AM    

Only on some nights, we would be awakened at 4AM by a very loud roaring noise. No lions nearby. Finally realized it was the Hulk rollercoaster at Universal Islands of Adventure. They start running it at 4 AM and it has specially designed air scoops to make that noise.

United States
Wednesday 14th of April 2010 8:56 am

Location: Beep in the VCR    

Back when I lived in California in the 1990s, my parents had a fun case of sound-chasing. Every night at 8:00pm they would hear this beep sound for exactly one minute. They got to where they would mute everything and search for the sound. After a long time, dad ended up taking the VCR apart. My older brother had shoved a watch FAR back into the VCR... the alarm.

United States
Wednesday 14th of April 2010 6:48 pm

Location: Death cries of old electronics    

Occasionally when walking out of my sister's room, a noise that was easily identifiable as a dying electronic music box would sound. After weeks, I finally worked out that it was the push-button music box from inside a destroyed stuffed animal. It had been wedge under the carpet (where carpet meets tile) to be stepped upon.

United States
Thursday 22nd of April 2010 11:24 pm

Location: Cows mooing    

We moved out into the country. In the evenings, we could hear what sounded like incoherent muttering. We're much too far from neighbors for it to be someone's radio or TV. Turns out it's cows, some distance away; in the evening apparently they get noisy and the sound carries pretty well.

United States
Tuesday 27th of April 2010 9:36 am

Location: Squeaky windmill    

Still way out in the country. I do wish we could do something about the neighbor's squeaky windmill. It took forever to figure out what it was (we can't see it from our property and it's not visible from the roads either); there's just a horrible creaking sound when the wind blows. We worried that our barn might be falling apart, or something somewhere is collapsing, or... But no.

United States
Tuesday 27th of April 2010 9:39 am

Location: Annoying click/crack noise    

The house got new central heating installed a couple of years back. One of the pipes runs floor-to-ceiling in the bedroom due to space constraints. Every night (assuming the heating was on during the day), there is a sort of cracking or clicking noise from the pipes. I later realised it is the noise of the metal pipes contracting again after expanding due to the heat of the water all day

England
Thursday 29th of April 2010 5:36 pm

Location: a jarring BOOM every day    

I'm a night owl. When I 1st moved here, I'd be up late or about to snooze when %%%BOOM%%%...a loud, somewhat faraway sound suddenly dropped like a bomb and I'd feel a mild rumbling from the ground/airspace. It's ominous. Sometimes is wakes me up & it's always pitch black outside since it happens at 5:30 am each day. Turns out it's a cannon blast from the army fort a few miles away.

Belize
Friday 30th of April 2010 8:00 am

Location: a man whispers "goodnight"    

My mother lives directly across the street from her small town's only funeral home. Whenever I visit her and sleep in my old room, as I drift off to sleep, a disembodied male voice whispers "Goodnight" loudly in my ear. This only happens when I'm there. It's not frightening. He's a comforting ghost. Probably lonely hanging around the funeral home in that boring a$$ town.

Western Sahara
Friday 30th of April 2010 8:07 am

Location: high pitched, LOUD, sustained doorbell note, louder than in front of amps at rock concert    

There's a crazy LOUD, nonstop, high pitched screaming sound that is nauseating in its monotone. It's so loudly unidentifiable: a Banshee screaming? An unending, ear-blasting doorbell note? We couldn't locate it coz it was like it was coming from everywhere, & it felt like we're going deaf! THE MICROWAVE had fritzed out, its "beep" blasting in our skulls. Horrifying, left hearing damage.

Turkmenistan
Friday 30th of April 2010 8:24 am

Location: rustling in the bushes    

I lived in a 2nd story dorm. It was an old one where you could actually open the windows. No heating or A/C. Every night I'd turn on some music and hear a medium-large animal rustling in the bushes below the window. I'd try to spot it, but could never catch a glimpse. After a few months, I finally saw him: the local homeless man. He said he hid in the bushes to listen to my tunes.

Andorra
Friday 30th of April 2010 8:34 am

Location: a light snap-snap-snapping    

What are the name of the bugs that like to pop-pop-pop themselves on the floor? They sound like snapping fingers. And you can't locate the damn bug for a minimum of three days, meanwhile pop-pop-snap-snap-snap. Annoying buggers.

Kiribati
Friday 30th of April 2010 8:39 am

Location: Roof Vent Screeching    

Had a similar "screeching in the wind" experience. In our case, I had one of those cans of spray lubricant that did the trick.

St. Vincent & The Grenadines
Saturday 01st of May 2010 7:59 am

Location: fiber optic cables rubbing against metal pipes?    

Back awhile, I began to hear a very low hum in my house, worse at one end and at night. Drove me crazy for months until someone suggested it might be recently laid fiber optic cables in a trench w/ metal pipes up the street. They said vibration could be worse at night fr. less power demand. The ground has settled and gradually the noise went away for the most part.

United States
Tuesday 18th of May 2010 3:17 pm

Location: Furnace    

At certain times each day, I would hear a loud CRASH coming from my basement. It was SO ANNOYING to figure out the source!!

Japan
Friday 04th of June 2010 1:57 pm

Location: What I thought was someone doing a very gassy shit interspersed with riproaring farts    

was actually the guy 2 doors down from me blowing his nose REALLY loud, used to do it every day at the same sort of time.

Antigua & Barbuda
Thursday 10th of June 2010 6:10 pm

Location: Sleep and Snore Ernie with dying batteries    

In the middle of the night (of course) we heard this creepy slow voice saying "*YAWWWWNNNN* I am SOOO sleepy!" and then it would snore for about 15 seconds and quit. It freaked us out, but we couldn't track it down until one night I was up to check on our daughter, and the cat jumped in the toy box. I had forgotten about that stupid toy. We made it disappear the next morning.

United States
Sunday 13th of June 2010 2:31 pm

Location: Roof vent just like yours except...    

mine would make a very high pitched steady squeal that sounded more like a piezo chime but continuous. only after it rained and only with the right breeze. It took me months after buying the house to find it. The neighbors thanked me for stopping it. It was like that for years apparently.

United States
Friday 25th of June 2010 2:20 pm

Location: Something like a whipcrack amplified to thunderclap volume and played backwards at half speed with lots of reverb and echo.    

I lived once about 2.5 Km from the end of an airport runway with the flight path almost right over the house. Not for everyone, but I thought it was the coolest. Some months later, I heard the noise for the first time one morning about 5am, and it was LOUD! I was up and out in full emergency wake-up mode, but...nothing! It happened a few more times that morning, then again a week later

Australia
Saturday 26th of June 2010 4:37 am

Location: Big whistlling, rushing, thrumming, whipcracking noise    

It happened again about a week later, then started happening in the evenings too! It took ages to work out, but it was such an amazing reason when I worked it out. Behind the house were the radio masts for the airport. On still, warm, humid days, the vortices generated by a medium-sized jet would drift into the guy wires anchoring the masts, and that's what the noise was.

Australia
Saturday 26th of June 2010 4:44 am

Location: Vortices from aircraft vibrating radio mast cables    

The noise wasn't there when I moved in because it only happened in still, cool but humid air. I arrived in summer and had months to get used to the jet engine noise and didn't immediately associate the two. The sound also arrived a surprisingly long time after the plane had been and gone. It only happened with small or mid-size jets, and maybe was dependent on speed as well. Amazing!

Australia
Saturday 26th of June 2010 5:06 am

Location: Jet wash and a lost frog    

Last one, I promise. In summer, the sound was there, once I knew to look for it, but hidden by jet noise - the sound (or the vortice that caused it) was (I think) moving faster and arriving sooner. There was also a night spent stalking a random "Blop!" noise that turned out to be a tree frog wandering around the house 1 hop at a time, freezing when I made noise moving around.

Australia
Saturday 26th of June 2010 5:35 am

Location: like someone drilling through the floor    

My wife calls me at work one night saying that a noise keeps coming from my office, but she cannot find the source of it. She described it as sounds like someone trying to drill up through the floor (which is carpet over cement, no crawlspace even). It turned out to be a Tarzan straw that made noise when you drink. The batteries were low and it was activating itself periodically.

South Africa
Thursday 01st of July 2010 11:32 am

Location: An electrical sort of humming.    

It's a low electrical constant sound, but the frequency sort of resonates inside your ear or in your head. I couldn't sleep; hours spent searching for source. No dice. I own a duplex and was eventually forced to move downstairs to save my sanity (no sound downstairs!) New tenants never mentioned the noise; makes me feel like maybe I'm crazy.

Afghanistan
Thursday 01st of July 2010 1:14 pm

Location: Giant Aeolian Harp    

When we moved into our house 4 1/2 years ago, we would hear a strange ethereal noise whenever we had a strong north wind. I finally figured out weeks later that it was the high-powered power lines that bisect our neighborhood singing in the wind like a giant Aeolian harp due to the tightening of the lines caused by the cold weather and the strong winds making them resonate.

United States
Friday 13th of August 2010 9:22 am

Location: Rustling plastic    

When visiting a friend a while back I slept in a small attic space in his house. Not bad if you curl up in a sleeping bag, but I heard an occasional rustling sound that I was sure was mice moving around, making it very hard to sleep. Only a few days later when I went in during the day did I see that plastic sheeting against the wall was gently blowing back and forth making the noise.

Cambodia
Sunday 12th of September 2010 12:13 am

Location: Unintelligible computer speech    

My mother came to visit. We did many tourist attractions throughout her visit. Wherever we would go, she'd pop out her brand new Japanese camera to take pictures of her precious grand kids. The camera spoke some unintelligible sentence each time she took a picture...the last day of her visit we figured out what it was saying. "Preese rode frim."

United States
Tuesday 28th of September 2010 12:26 pm

Location: A squeaking/chirping, like a bird or rodent    

This was bothering the hell out of me last fall. Every so often, I would hear a squeaking sound coming from my window. I looked for a bird or squirrel nest outside, and didn't see anything. A couple of months later, I finally figured it out - my wall heater, mounted under the window, was squeaking as it warmed up.

United States
Tuesday 28th of September 2010 8:07 pm

Location: Unearthly wheezing screeches    

Kept hearing these faint ungodly noises in my room late at night in the spring and fall, could not for the life of me locate the noise until I went to sleep with my window open and realized it was coming from outside. It was mating foxes in the woods behind my house. They come back every year.

United States
Wednesday 29th of September 2010 1:33 am

Location: Squeaking Sound    

I started hearing a squeaking sound, similar to a shoe squeak every so often. It came from many directions and at random times. It was driving me crazy, until I realized it was the multiple smoke detectors in the house running out of battery at the same time. When I was close to one squeak, it would come from somewhere else, and confused me for a while. Good luck with finding your sound.

United States
Thursday 07th of October 2010 2:31 am

Location: beep    

Sometimes while I'm dreaming I hear some electronic chirps one second apart followed by a single electronic beep which leads me to wake up. It doesn't happen very often and I don't even know if it's a dream or not because I am always asleep. And I never know where it's coming from. I've heard it even after moving houses.

United States
Wednesday 13th of October 2010 12:15 pm

Location: rat-a-tat-tat-rat-a-tat-tat    

The outside unit of our heat pump makes a sound like it is farting. It took us a bit to figure out that it was truly the culprit, because outside the house you can barely hear anything, yet inside the house you can clearly (loudly, even!) hear the drawn out sound. Since this was a brand-new heat pump, we called for service. Turns out it is due to condensation in the coil. Weird!

United States
Saturday 16th of October 2010 2:31 pm

Location: Beeping every seven seconds in the back yard    

I just took my dogs out back for their nightly duties, and heard a beep every 7 seconds, like a dying battery alarm. Can only hear it on one side of the house, and not inside only outside. No idea what it is.

United States
Sunday 17th of October 2010 9:54 pm

Location: Dying handheld solitare gag gift    

I made an annoying screeching noise all day and night for almost a week, until I found it in a pile of other junk.

United States
Sunday 17th of October 2010 9:57 pm

Location: Running footsteps    

I work in a 100+ yr old mental hospital on the graveyard shift. Any unexplained sound is a little spooky. One night we heard what sounded like footsteps running down the hall on the (unused and empty) floor above us. Turned out it was a patient on our floor shuffling across to the bathroom.

United States
Monday 18th of October 2010 3:27 am

Location: Duress Alarm (panic-everyone get here)    

Another story from the mental hospital. The duress alarm in a building we vacated years ago would sound occasionally in the middle of the night causing several people to go running to assist non existant staff. Still don't know why it did that. Electrical short or something. Or just ghosts in this old place. Who knows?

United States
Monday 18th of October 2010 3:29 am

Location: Persistent beeping in back yard ...    

Update: It's a smoke alarm from my neighbor's house. In the night I couldn't tell what direction it was coming from.

United States
Monday 18th of October 2010 5:52 am

Location: Watch    

When things end badly... Buy a cheap wristwatch and a brand new name-brand battery. Install new battery in the watch. Set the alarm for 3:33am, remove a heating grate from the wall of the bedroom and toss the watch a few feet into the ductwork. Replace grate, pack sh*t and leave.

United States
Saturday 06th of November 2010 10:15 am

Location: a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton    

It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage. - Edgar

United States
Tuesday 09th of November 2010 10:39 pm

Location: loud whistling in attic during rain    

It's a hum/whistle, as if electrical, but only occurs during rain, not necessarily low temp (often simultaneous though) or wind. It's intermittent and lasts about 15 seconds at a time, DishTV came to look, next will be electric company. We're baffled. Attic hunting hasn't turned up anything.

United States
Saturday 27th of November 2010 7:21 am

Location: my water tank is only supposed to make noise when you flash the toilet or use the taps,but sometimes it would make this sound even though I am alone in the house or everybody else is on bed    

Ireland
Wednesday 15th of December 2010 1:43 pm

Location: sphygmomanometer!    

My mother is a nurse, and used to do home-calls. She hadn't done this for a few years, and her kit with various equipment had been relegated to a storage crawlspace. One day we started hearing a faint electronic beep every 30 seconds or so. This drove the whole family insane for a few days - we couldn't figure out where it was coming from, and no amount of searching led us to the culprit. FINALLY someone checked the crawlspace, and it turned out that the sphygmomanometer (blood pressure meter) in the kit was low on battery power and was beeping to let us know. Never would have suspected....

Seychelles
Wednesday 22nd of December 2010 2:42 pm

Location: TING...60 seconds later...TING    

A faint metallic beep noise every minute to half-minute, but sometimes not at all. Most easily heard in the bathroom or kitchen. My roommate heard it first. Eventually narrowed it down to a neighbor's metal gate moving in the wind. Could have been Muni, but there's no way it would have been on time like that.

Liechtenstein
Friday 14th of January 2011 12:04 am

Location: Tapping    

Every little while when it's dark out I hear a mysterious tapping noise on our front door. It sounds as though someone is strumming their fingers over and over. It stops as quickly as it starts. It is very odd because it happens in odd intervals. I've opened the door and looked around the area but there is no visible cause to this sound.

Canada
Monday 31st of January 2011 7:50 pm

Location: Loud BOOM coming from attic    

The extreme changes in temperature going from 60 degrees to below freezing in less than 24 hours cause the rafters in the attic to contract and shift causing deafening booms like gunshots throughout the house every 20-30 seconds. Very scary.

United States
Wednesday 02nd of February 2011 10:47 pm

Location: beep    

honk honk

Gabon
Sunday 06th of February 2011 9:20 pm

Location: Dib-Dub!    

The sound of my mom´s cellphone message alert all day long because she didn´t know how to rad them

Uruguay
Sunday 13th of February 2011 10:25 pm

Location: About 8-12 rapid knocks, in succession, every few minutes, all night long    

Still haven't fgured this out...couldn't sleep through it so at 3am I decided to use a stopwatch to time between the knocking, it is always EXACTLY 2, 3, 4, or 5 minutes between them, i.e. never 2.5 minutes or 3.75 minutes. Can only hear it in bedroom, drove my wife and me nuts last night.

United States
Saturday 19th of February 2011 9:11 am

Location: Thud Thud Thudding every 30 seconds day & night - sounds like it's coming from the flat roof above the apartment    

I live at the top of a four storey apartment block, and the thudding started up around the time the flat roof was replaced. Sounds like someone hitting the roof with a sledge hammer, but intermittent so can stop for 3 hours & then starts up again. No way for me to climb up on roof to investigate. Water tank located over my apartment so maybe it's coming from there? It's driving me crazy!

United Kingdom
Saturday 05th of March 2011 10:47 pm

Location: Gunshot    

My wife and I heard what sounded like a gunshot, and searched the house for 15 minutes but found nothing. The next morning, we realized what it was when the garage wouldn't open. The high-tension spring had snapped.

United States
Thursday 10th of March 2011 7:38 am

Location: My car    

I've solved several mystery sounds over the years. First, a weird sound when my car was moving, like a madly fluttering little leaf from my Chinese Elm tree caught in the A/C system, but the noise didn't change whether the A/C was on or off. Nothing caught under the vehicle. Turned out to be a rusted mechanical speedometer cable. Poured in half a tube of graphite lube to cure it.

United States
Friday 11th of March 2011 10:23 pm

Location: Exterior wall of house    

Buzzing noise only heard in the mornings, sounded like it was right outside my bedroom window. I thought it was flies at first, but couldn't figure out what would be attracting them. Turned out to be large black bumblebees living in the wall and attic, entering through a break in the stucco. Only heard in the morning because the wall faces east and they buzz to cool the colony.

United States
Friday 11th of March 2011 10:29 pm

Location: Neighbor's house    

Loud single beep/chirp heard at long intervals, louder in warm weather. Neighbor's smoke alarm low battery warning -- louder when more windows and doors were open between it and me. They never replaced it but after a few years it finally died completely. I'd have told them what the noise was but they're not nice people and I'm sure any response they gave would have been most unpleasant.

United States
Friday 11th of March 2011 10:37 pm

Location: Aeolian harp in house gutters    

First this was a very strange sound, now it is annoying because I'm sure there must be a way to stop it. I had new gutters, complete with a leaf guard system, put on my antique house. Now whenever the wind blows more than about 20 mph the gutter vibrated with the sound made by an Aeolian harp.

United States
Monday 18th of April 2011 11:50 am

Location: Static noise from fire escape    

I was about to go to sleep when I heard some sound. I traced it to the fire escape/balcony door in my apartment. I went down the fire escape (1am) and found the noise coming from the door at the bottom. It turned out to be somebody's old radio. The sound turned off at 2:50 am and I could get to sleep.

Canada
Sunday 01st of May 2011 8:46 pm

Location: Series of scary clunks over baby monitor    

When our son was an infant, one night we heard this loud clunk over the monitor so we rushed in, saw nothing, but woke him up. This kept happening Eventually we realized it was related to a water pipe for the apartment upstairs that ran through his room. We just didn't notice it during the day. Forgot to tell the babysitter though and she ran in there and woke him up one night too.

Cuba
Wednesday 15th of June 2011 5:20 pm

Location: Sudden Loud Solid BANG in the middle of the night    

Like someone had thrown a heavy barrel against the back of the house - it was a small earthquake centered deep below our neighborhood.

United States
Tuesday 21st of June 2011 8:14 am

Location: tapping noise inside walls    

strange tapping noise inside walls around 3 a.m.,sounds like something sharp tapping in a morse code. happens only once every 2 or 3 weeks,and always close to the same time.the wall is also an interior wall that separates my living room from my kitchen,and is 12 inches thick where the noise is comming from.I have not figured it out,definitely something living in there, but what?FREAKS ME OUT ! i see others with same problem.

United States
Saturday 30th of July 2011 11:02 pm

Location: Scraping, thumping sound    

I was hearing a very familiar sound outside (I am the son of a builder). It was the sound of a hollow core cinder block being dragged over another, a sort of ringing scraping sound... then the thumping sound of it being dropped. But there weren't any blocks outside! There was blasting going on hundreds of feet away. It was the layers of limestone underground scraping and thumping!

United States
Monday 08th of August 2011 8:47 pm

Location: Someone knocking at the farmhouse door...    

As a kid, I lived on a farm. Cows, chickens, pigs, the usual. We kept hearing someone knock at our back door, but no one was there. Finally it happened one day when I was outside. A couple old biddies, more like pets, had noticed that sometimes we came to the back door and threw out scraps... and were pecking the door to get us to come to it!

United States
Monday 08th of August 2011 8:52 pm

Location: Loud boom    

When I was a kid, my friend and I lived near Sand Lake in South Dakota(on the wildlife refuge) and we would hear this extremely loud boom when walking on the road near the froz lake. We were so frightened, thinking there was a monster in the lake. After avoiding the lake for weeks, we mentioned it to an adult who told us that the thick ice on the lake was breaking up, causing a loud boom

United States
Sunday 21st of August 2011 2:16 am

Location: snap-snap-snap    

We moved to NM 3 years ago, a couple of months ago I kept hearing this strange snap-snap-snap noise. I searched & searched to no avail.The damn noise seemed to come from different areas through the kitchen.This kept up for 2 months! Mostly during the night.Well recently my sons came running up to me holding this beetle & was yelling " Watch this!" CLICKERBUGS! They come in from the heat!

United States
Saturday 10th of September 2011 2:25 am

Location: thwapping sound when in moving car    

Was passenger..only happened when car was in motion, thought it was a flat tire. It was the cloth belt to my raincoat that got caught in the door and was flapping in the wind and hitting the side of the car!

United States
Monday 19th of September 2011 9:07 am

Location: The neighbor has some kind of device that rings in my condo. It sounds like a cel phone. How is she doing that?    

She is tormenting me by doing it multiple times a night every night and it is starting to affect my health. She is a very light sleeper, if she sleeps at all. How is she doing that!

United States
Monday 26th of September 2011 3:05 pm

Location: Rumble, rumble, bam! and the sound of shattering glass. Scared me to death.    

What in the flip was this noise. Nothing is out of place or broken in the house or yard. Where did the sound come from.

United States
Tuesday 27th of September 2011 8:09 pm

Location: Still no idea what the dripping sound is!    

We had regular brick hearth with a wood facade on the outside, later installed a pellet stove so the flue has been replaced, no leaks when it rains however when it does we get a metallic drip,drip,drip sound every 14 seconds. It resonates in the wall really loud upstairs much softer downstairs. No idea what it can be..it 60 degrees outside so it can't be metal flux.

United States
Tuesday 04th of October 2011 6:09 am

Location: beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep...    

The sound of a careless electronic device wondering whether anyone cared enough to help it with its problem. I could hear it out my back door every few days, and sometimes in my bedroom at night. One recent Saturday I noticed my neighbour put their car in their garage, walk into their house, and use the garage door remote. The door closed, touched the car, opened... beep, beep, beep

Australia
Sunday 09th of October 2011 5:52 am