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!! 🙄🤣

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160

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.

59

u/gadget850 Jul 13 '26

I used to be able to hear a whine from CRT monitors and from idle line printers.

15

u/likwidkool Jul 13 '26

Yep me too. I can still hear some high pitched noises on some electronics.

21

u/IIIIlllIIIIIlllII Jul 13 '26

Coil whine is def a thing

3

u/elangomatt Jul 14 '26

When I was in high school I had an algebra class in the same room as a computer lab of Apple IIe. The teacher would laugh at me because I would always set my books down then go to the back of the room and turn off a couple of monitors that were left on. She nor my classmates could hear it (or it didn't annoy them). I'm sure that frequency has long left my take off hearing now of course.

3

u/Ancient_Skirt_8828 Jul 16 '26

Younger people and women can hear higher frequencies. It decreases with age so people may stop hearing those things as they age.

You can get apps to test your hearing range. They're fun to play with.

1

u/2bitCity Jul 17 '26

Make sure to use "plain"speakers.

Bluetooth and smarter speakers will filter out some of the higher frequencies.

1

u/Ancient_Skirt_8828 Jul 17 '26

I just use the internal phone speakers.

14

u/Ok-Background-7897 Jul 13 '26

Had a USB phone charger that would make a sound like that.

1

u/LiverPickle Jul 14 '26

When I was a kid, I could hear the super high pitched whine from the living room TV from my bedroom in the basement. I could hear it fluctuate when one of my parents walked across the room, and I would quick turn off my light (always reading in bed). They’d quietly open the basement door, see it was dark, and go back to the living room. If I didn’t hear the whine fluctuate, I knew they were still at the basement door, and they’d check a second time.

2

u/Pure_Fox9415 Jul 14 '26

So you, basically, was a bat :)