Steve the discussion started with asking can hurricanes cause earthquakes. No stipulation that they should be big ones, little ones or that they should be bright blue and gift wrapped just for you.
You seem to have a fixation on plate boundary tectonics-we ain't talking about that. Not all faults are deep down in the crust, some may have their epicenter deep down but but others are much closer to surface. Why pontificate about a subject where your knowledge is woefully deficient?
The argument proposed by many of the papers I linked to suggests that many minor surcharges to a body in stress can in certain cases partially relax that stress,(an earthquake-big-little-indifferent) it does not have to be deep seated.
Possible mechanisms:
Heavy rain causing landslides
Heavy rain causing hydraulic loading in karst areas
Filling major reservoirs
Emptying reservoirs
The passage of an intense storm.

Mr Red's analogy 21 Sep 17 - 10:13 AM of the tap tap scenario is very plausible. especially for a storm system, tides accentuated, water ponded, vigorous wave action all create repetitive spikes above the normal background noise. Can this create earthquakes? A more demanding question may be: Why can it not? Extracting micro seismic events from background noise require accurate instrumentation, recording and analysis. I do not have first hand knowledge to elaborate on that
other than to say microseismic monitoring is used in the chalk reservoirs in the North Sea and for monitoring fracture orientation in the Bakken Shale
Food for thought

The tap tap tap scenario?
https://www.livescience.com/42495-model-suggests-earthquake-warning-signs.html