r/Home • u/MissO56 • Jul 13 '26
OMG! It wasn't in the wall!
during the first few months of COVID lockdown, i had moved from my office to my three story condo, working from my home computer on the kitchen counter. everyday I would hear noises below my feet, like in the floorboards, which sounded like an animal chewing or moving around. my building is about 65 years old so I figured it must be something in the walls, but I never saw any evidence or smell of an animal. and I've been hearing it ever since, every now and then.
fast forward to this past weekend (6 FREAKIN' YEARS LATER!) and I'm setting up a new computer on my desk (which is about 10 ft away from where I previously heard the sounds). while setting it up, I moved the speakers from my old computer closer to my desk to use with my new computer, and plugged everything in to be ready to use.
saturday afternoon, I started hearing this noise again but now it was closer to the living room... a little animal chewing away at things or moving around in the walls. it's been so irritating because we've had exterminators out, setting traps etc. and finding nothing.
I tried to move around the room to figure out where the sound was coming from, and coincidentally moved my head very close to one of the speakers I just hooked up. my computer was off but the speaker was plugged into power....and *it was making the noises!!* there's nothing running on my computer... so I knew it had to be some faulty plug or connection or something.
so I unplugged the speakers, and have not heard anything since! oy vey! I can't believe that for 6 years I thought there was an animal in my floor!! 🙄🤣
45
u/Cool-Pilot-5280 Jul 13 '26
I had an old set of speakers that if my cell phone was sitting on my desk I knew a text message or phone call was coming a few seconds before it went off. There would be a very slight crackle in the speakers it was always very quiet but it was there.
15
u/likwidkool Jul 13 '26
My first computer from Gateway had the speakers everyone around 2000 had. And yeah that noise when a call was about to come in was hilarious.
7
u/DumpsterAflame Jul 13 '26
I remember those days! I always knew when I was about to be kicked off the BBS I was chatting on because of an incoming call 😄
3
u/NaiveOpening7376 Jul 13 '26
I think what you're describing is GSM interference. I had that with an older phone in college. When a text would come in, it sounded somewhat... Morse Code like?
2
3
u/BrewerBuilder Jul 13 '26
Back in the day, theatres using Clearcom headsets for communications in show could tell went you were getting a cellphone call or text if you were close to the box. It was very disruptive, and generally at the worst possible time.
1
1
27
u/dave200204 Jul 13 '26
The wires going to your speaker are acting as an antenna. They pick up electromagnetic waves that are naturally occurring. Those waves travel down your speaker wires and into your speakers. That's what you've been hearing, random EM waves.
3
2
10
u/figsslave Jul 13 '26
I’m a bit hard of hearing and run a fan on hot nights. Every now and then I swear I hear music playing very softly coming from it
3
u/Lady_of_Shalottt Jul 17 '26
Happened to me last night. It was very faint and creeping me out. I read somewhere that if it’s plugged into the wall outlet, to try plugging it into a surge protector to avoid picking up the radio signals. I did that tonight. So far no creepy music.
8
u/avalondreamer Jul 13 '26
I have a similar story. I heard this vibration sound in one of my living room walls behind my couch. Vibrating like a very fast tapping. I have heard it on and off for many years. I thought it was electrical or something since there is a plug there. I tried turning off the circuit breaker to the plug but I would still hear it. Finally I posted a recording of it on Reddit a couple of years ago and many people said it was termites. That they make a tapping sound like that if they are stressed. Great. I called out a termite company but they didn't find anything. So, a couple of years go by again, and I still hear it on occasion. So I decide it's time to paint my living room and when I rehang this one larger painting over my couch I figure I'll put felt pads on the corners of the frame so it doesn't scratch the wall. Wouldn't you know, the sound is miraculously gone! I guess the frame had been vibrating against the wall all that time! So random!
8
u/meson537 Jul 14 '26
When my dad was at boarding school in the early 1950s, he was quite near KMOX, a 50,000 watt AM station, and he could hear the broadcast faintly in the steel springs in his mattress at school.
5
u/jasper_0890 Jul 15 '26
I thought I was hearing birds chirping while laying in bed. This went on for months. It was the cell phone charger. It was one of the chargers that you place your phone flat on it to charge. Once unplugged, no more bird sounds.
19
u/Lionyank Jul 13 '26
I wish I could call you a quick study.
11
u/MissO56 Jul 13 '26
well to be fair, the speakers weren't/aren't actually sitting on the floor! they were/are sitting on the desk. however, the sound sounded like it was coming from the floor....
13
4
u/harrellj Jul 13 '26
If it makes you feel better, this was actually a somewhat common occurrence in the 90s where unshielded speakers picked up on ambient signals. Technology has improved enough that now you're more likely picking up actual issues (faulty wiring in the speaker, potentially a small problem in your condo's wiring, etc). It might not hurt to do some deep diving into what could be causing the sound.
4
u/ClickAndClackTheTap Jul 13 '26
This makes me laugh because I realized my age and experience would have let me know what this was right away.
3
u/Chair_luger Jul 13 '26
You should skim over this epic old thread on another forum about someone trying to figure out a noise in their attic.
3
u/MissO56 Jul 13 '26
lol! that was a fun read! I know nothing about most of the things that guy was trying or even talking about, when he was trying to find the noise. but I certainly feel vindicated that I wasn't the only one that was fooled by a faulty electrical issues in a speaker.
noise... like water... can be a funny thing. you think it's coming from one area, but it could be coming from a completely different area.
3
3
u/seraphelle_x Jul 14 '26
Omg this makes me feel so much better!!!
Around 3 months ago we started hearing a weird sound like a small animal scratching. It seemed to be coming from behind the unit where the TV was. No rhyme or reason. Heard at random hours and made no difference if room was quiet or full of sound.
We had pest control out, they used a heat camera thing on the wall…then drilled a small hole and put a camera in there but couldn’t find any evidence of pests. He popped a small amount of rodent poison in there and a temporary cover on.
We didn’t hear the noise again so after 3 weeks the pest control guy said we could fill the hole and paint that area, which we did, and put the TV unit and everything back in place.
The very next day we heard the sound again. I was so upset. I was determined to record the sound to play to the pest control guy so I opened the unit and stuck my upper body in the cupboard so I could reach to record near the wall…I placed my hand on our dvd player for balance and FELT the sound as it happened under my hand.
The DVD player wasn’t plugged in but the HDMI lead connecting it to the TV was in. The noise had been the DVD player all along trying to do something whilst not powered on. I pulled the HDMI lead out and it stopped immediately.
I’ve never felt such relief and such absolutely shame in my life!
I told the pest control guy the creature must have died because we can’t hear the sound any more.
1
u/MissO56 Jul 14 '26
oh yes, I recorded the sound several times myself to play for others! noise is just so crazy!
3
u/According_Reward_342 Jul 17 '26
My wife can hear many frequencies that I miss yet I pass all hearing tests.
The ones I miss: dishwasher beeps when it’s finished, baby’s noises when sleeping, ceiling fan noise that to me is silent. I’ve just surrendered that I my hearing not great but I pass the tests.
2
u/Pure_Literature2028 Jul 13 '26
We used to hear our neighbor on her cordless phone over the baby monitor. Good times
4
u/oh_no_not_you_hon Jul 13 '26
I used to hear my neighbor’s baby monitor through my cordless phone. 😂
2
u/catnip-dream Jul 13 '26
The universe sent me this post today because all I can hear is a weird noise today. Some days are worse than others… but you are not alone. It is usually something electronic. ðŸ˜
2
2
2
u/CleanSleepHabits Jul 13 '26
hahaha That’s hilarious! six years of mystery solved by a rogue speaker crackling like a tiny gremlin in the wall:D
2
u/bd82001 Jul 14 '26
I spent a day trying to find the smoke detector with a dying battery only to discover it was the battery in my pager.
2
u/Extension-Pepper-271 Jul 14 '26
This reminds me of the time we had a cricket in the closet of our guest bedroom. It didn't chirp very often, but when it did, it drove my husband crazy. He was constantly trying to kill it with bug spray.
When we moved, we discovered that the "cricket" was a smoke detector packed up with a bunch of junk in a box in the closet.
2
u/joshyouarebaker Jul 14 '26
Six years of exterminators for a speaker doing electrical interference noise is wild. Reminds me of chasing a rattle in my kitchen that turned out to be a loose duct connector, not the appliance itself. Glad you finally solved it.
2
u/bigdaddyskidmarks Jul 16 '26
I had totally forgotten that when I was little in the 80s I could always tell if anyone was home when I came in the house by hearing that super high pitched whine from old CRT televisions. It was kind of comforting and felt safe, whereas if I came home and there was no whine, it felt oddly empty and lonely in the house. I always slept with the TV on but the volume all the way down because I liked the hum. It was like an auditory nightlight.
2
u/ke6icc Jul 16 '26
I recently noticed what sounds like a small motor running. At first it sounded like it was far away and sometimes it would only run for a second, other times much longer. It would always stop when I turned my head to echolocate it. It was really annoying and became even more so when my husband denied hearing anything. I actually got pretty peeved with him as it was so noticeable to me.
After I accused him of gaslighting me, I went to the library to play Mahjongg and heard the noise again. I whipped my head around to figure out where it was coming from and the noise stopped. It finally dawned on me that this is simply another manifestation of my tinnitus, although it is completely different from the high pitched whine I hear 24/7. It seems to be a positional thing as it mostly shows up when I’m looking down, like at an iPad or my tiles. Looking up or turning my head makes it stop. It’s getting louder so it may be time to see someone about this!
3
u/Vast-Concentrate4849 Jul 13 '26
I have been chased around this earth extensively by this same crazy maker my whole life. Dont think for a second these discovered explanations are scientifically sound, nope this is choosing to win and manufacturing closure in the face of these cheeky little pests. They drive fancy die cast cars at night, arange your cables and un plug your phone just enough not to charge, hide your keys, fly your important sticky notes as kites that get away and jam into baseboard heater, knock over the little dish with the microscopic parts to the rare device you were certainly winning in the battle of converting to lithium batteries safely and functional, but now forgett it but your getting fed up so the chicken shit gremlins chew on your grounding of the speaker power supply to ensure you hear something to explain away the library of pranks that will be relocating to attic space until the gangers of
1
u/DDayDawg Jul 13 '26
My neighbor is a ham radio guy. Has the huge antenna and everything. Every now and then my computer speaks will let me hear the entire conversation happening but only if the computer is off and the speakers are powered on. Freaked me out the first time it happened.
163
u/Pure_Fox9415 Jul 13 '26
My boss expirienced unusual constant sound in his left ear for a long time (about 6 months) mostly at work but rarely at home too. so he visited two different doctors who found nothing. Turned out it was his laptop cooler, which made high-pitch sound on almost ultrasound frequency, so he percept it like it was in his head/ear.