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BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be
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Subject: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: GUEST,Sibelius Date: 20 Oct 03 - 04:18 PM I am disconcerted by a strange tapping noise which has started up in my house. It occurs in one corner of one room, and appears to come from (or from under) the floorboards. It's quite distinct, and sounds like the sort of noise you'd make by tapping something small and hard or sharp, like a gravel fragment or a needle, against the floorboard. It lasts for between about 30 seconds and a couple of minutes, then stops for a while, then starts again. The rate of tapping is usually at intervals of a second or so, but that varies as well, and sometimes the rate is noticeably quicker - 2-3 times a second. The first tap in a sequence is nearly always louder than those following. What does the fervent imagination and experience of the collective Mudcat mind make of this? This, by the way, is Manchester UK, so I doubt if it's termites, unless very brave, foolhardy or hopelessly lost termites. I don't have any pets. The tapping started last Friday, 17th October. The floorboards have been stripped and varnished but that was about six years ago, and they've been exposed ever since, so nothing has happened recently to change their condition. The house is old-ish (1897), and I suspect the floorboards are the originals. The void under the boards is about 18 inches deep, and the floor of the void is just earth and old rubble. It's bloody irritating, I can tell you, and I want it stopped! The only noise I've ever come across like it was years ago, at an ex-girlfriend's house. It took her ages to pinpoint the source of the noise, and it spooked her badly. So badly, I'm afraid, that when she finally found the cause - a stag beetle - it scared her to death, and she drowned the wretched thing in polyurethane lacquer. I've never seen a stag beetle in this neck of the woods, but if the source of my own tapping torment is made of flesh and blood (with or without exo-skeleton), I'd really rather not drown it. I just want it to shut the **** up! What can it be? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Amos Date: 20 Oct 03 - 04:22 PM Poltergeist. Try posing it questions. Ask it to confess or unburden itself to you and then thank it roundly and advise it it may now go on its own. Or get a small youth to crawl around looking for a trapped woodpecker, unlikely. A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: GUEST Date: 20 Oct 03 - 04:24 PM Death watch beetle? A hot water pipe expanding? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: katlaughing Date: 20 Oct 03 - 04:40 PM Do you hear it more at certain times of the day? Does anyone else hear it?*bg* Could a small mammal, i.e. mouse or rat have gotten trapped under there? Do you have a cellar or crawl-space which you could explore for the cause? Have you tried tapping back?:-) Do you know Morse code...perhaps it's an SOS?:-) I'll bet it is a critter of some sort. Unless you have a child of a certain age, I doubt if it's a poltergeist. Do you know the history of the house? Is it possible the house might be settling and cracking its bones, so to speak? Due to excessively dry summer or other factors? Good luck and please let us know what you find out! kat |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: GUEST,The Escape Committee Date: 20 Oct 03 - 04:42 PM Terribly sorry old chap, its the boys from hut 15 again I am afraid, a tad lost I think. Please dont tell anyone else, dont want the "goons" to find the tunnel do we, eh what?! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: GUEST Date: 20 Oct 03 - 04:44 PM Take the floorboards up, and have a look. Like durr... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: GUEST Date: 20 Oct 03 - 04:51 PM Ever read Poe's The Telltale Heart? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: open mike Date: 20 Oct 03 - 05:07 PM if it was the upstairs instead of the downstairs you might have bats in your belfry! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 20 Oct 03 - 05:27 PM I've never heard of anyone having Death Watch Beetles in their floorboards. But it mightn't be a bad idea to get on to the Council anyway. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: okthen Date: 20 Oct 03 - 05:28 PM It sounds pretty much like death watch beetle, the tapping sound is a mating call, on the other hand you could take it as a wake up call to get the wood treated while it's in one locality, the longer you leave it the more expensive it'll be. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Mr Red Date: 20 Oct 03 - 05:52 PM What kind of heating have you got - its about the time of year to switch it on. Though I would guess Sibelius would have needed it a month or two back in Finland. Anyway I was getting that ticking sound about 6=30 in the morning when the next-door neighbour's central heating switches-on and the pipes expand and strain against the holes and beams they traverse. I won't notice it (more loudly) from my system because I am far too macho (or mean) to have central heating on at this time of year (not that we are seeing any global warming at all - Oh no). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Blowzabella Date: 20 Oct 03 - 05:54 PM Just looked at that link McGrath - eeerrgh!!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Mickey191 Date: 20 Oct 03 - 06:23 PM The things one can learn here - McGrath - Thanks for that link. I have a tapping too, thank God I know it's not a Death Watch Beetle. It's my water heater. Tomorrow I'll read about earwigs. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Joybell Date: 20 Oct 03 - 06:41 PM I have learned so much in just a few months here. Death watch beetles, ear candles. We have lots of wall and ceiling noises but it's mostly possum farts -yes truly! and possum foot-thuds. My husband woke me up one night when he heard a regular soft thud-thud noise. He thought it came from under the floor. After some searching around on our hands and knees I took his pulse - it matched the thuds!! He is a musician with tinnitis and he had just had drainage tubes put in his ears. ( it didn't help) The moral of this story is, before pulling up the floorboards, - have you listened inside yourself Sibelius? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Bobert Date: 20 Oct 03 - 06:56 PM Ahhhh, sounds like you just cranked up yer heating system, didn't ya? Well, could be air in the pipes if ya get radiators. If not, it's something expanding that is cold... If it ain't that then bad news. You gotta move... Bobert |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Rapparee Date: 20 Oct 03 - 07:04 PM Do the thuds come in a particular time, like 4/4 or 12/8? Are they sometimes staccato, fortissimo, andante? It could be a musical group practicing, perhaps the Beetles. If it happens after flushing or running water, consider a thing called "water hammer." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Stilly River Sage Date: 20 Oct 03 - 07:29 PM Ohhhhh--a good creepy noise story just in time for Halloween! The thuds we hear around here during the day are the yellow-bellied sapsuckers in the trees across the street. At night (and I heard it again last night, damn-it, after I thought I plugged all of the holes) it is squirrels. I swear one was dancing a jig on my attic stairs door. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull Date: 20 Oct 03 - 07:30 PM heloo, maybe its a gohst/ i dont thinjk gohtsts do bad things, but just hide youre bears, and sandwidges just in case.john ps=if its a gohst, you could get youre local vicar to get rid off it, he will shout at it etc =[fuck off ghohst, and go away] i knoew aboiytt this, because i seen it on telly, and he had a motobike, and that bloke off emmerdale farm got a motortbike as well.john |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull Date: 20 Oct 03 - 07:45 PM or maybe its a moose, you can get poisun for them, or ring up the coincil mooose catcher, [they catch rats as well], i know tyhe rat cathcher in hull, he;s called pete. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Joybell Date: 20 Oct 03 - 07:54 PM Pete-the-rat-catcher! Is he that cousin of Pete-the-possum-man? Little Peter picked a peck of pickled possum. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull Date: 20 Oct 03 - 07:57 PM whois pert the possum man/, i never herd of him. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 20 Oct 03 - 08:47 PM There aren't that many moose in Manchester. We're a bit deprived that way, this side of the water. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Stilly River Sage Date: 20 Oct 03 - 09:02 PM Look for Roald Dahl's rat stories in Someone Like You. Two of them appear in Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life (a later edition, with stories remixed), but to get the full effect of the interrelated short stories, best to go to the original. SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Stilly River Sage Date: 20 Oct 03 - 09:04 PM Reminds me of a line from a song: "What can it be, what can it be, what can it be, what can it be?" "Henrietta's Wedding," I think? SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: LadyJean Date: 21 Oct 03 - 12:47 AM Do they have squirrells in Manchester? They can get into anything, and would make that kind of noise. Friends had a possum living in their attic, that liked to roll a log back and forth at night, which made quite an interesting noise. Though you might check out the story of the Fox sisters, in Hydesville NY. They also had noises in their floor. It started the whold spiritualist movement. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: open mike Date: 21 Oct 03 - 02:42 AM ooh goody--the fox sisters...a good ghost story and with trick or treat right around the corner! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Roger the Skiffler Date: 21 Oct 03 - 04:04 AM Just prise up the boards and let the poor washboard player out. What did he do to upset you? RtS (rattlin' in the trash can) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: HuwG Date: 21 Oct 03 - 04:27 AM If you leave it alone for a few years, and your house falls down, it was Death Watch Beetle. Squirrels are found in parts of Manchester (there are also parts where they wouldn't be seen dead). My house is roughly the same vintage as Sibelius's; I have been troubled with mice in the ceiling and floor spaces once or twice, but only in hot months. One the other hand, no rodent in my house ever had ambitions to become a drummer. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 21 Oct 03 - 05:48 AM No more news from Sibelius. Maybe the house has fallen down... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Amos Date: 21 Oct 03 - 08:47 AM SRS: On Henrietta's Wedding the mystery is :"Who can it be. who can it be?" at least as i recall it -- a real oldie from Joseph Marais and Miranda! Thanks for the nostalgia! A |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Stilly River Sage Date: 21 Oct 03 - 09:42 AM Yes, I know that. I should have added a smiley face to that post. ;-D |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Peterr Date: 21 Oct 03 - 11:09 AM Must be rats who have read Beatrix Potter about the Roly Poly Pudding. Did you used to have a kitten that's gone missing? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: GUEST,Sibelius Date: 21 Oct 03 - 12:14 PM No, I'm still here McGrath o.H., as is the house and the damn noise! Just come in from work (16:30 BST) and there it was, greeting me like an enthusiastic terrier. By the way McG, no moose in Manchester? You ever walk down Deansgate late on a Friday night? Yes LadyJean, there are squirrels round here, lots of 'em. Horrible scrawny grey things descended from, er, a US import if I'm not mistaken! I doubt if they're the cause. They prefer being outside in the trees. Generally, I'd have thought rats, mice, even squirrels, would make scratchy scraping noises, rather than a sharp tapping. And if it is an animal, well it's been there in exactly the same place for five days now, clinging to the underside of the board, just tapping. Tapping, tapping..... Bear in mind that there's an 18-inch deep void under the floor, so it's unlikely to be an animal trapped - unless it's big enough to get trapped in a space that size, and if it's that big, it ought to be making more racket than a sharp tapping! Guest ("Like, durr...") - I would have followed that great piece of advice, except there's a small access door to the void from the cellar, through which you can shine a torch and see the whole of the underside of the floorboards and the void, and there's nothing to see but earth and rubble. The boards can stay put. Yes there are hot water pipes, but they are several feet away from the source of the tapping and have always been in the same place. They do make some noise, but it's recognisable and only really occurs when they're heating up or cooling down. Yes, the central heating's on, but it's been on for a month or so. It comes on and off during the day with the timer, but the tapping noise is there regardless. Rapaire, I did wonder whether I could put the tapping to good use as a metronome, but whatever it is, it can't keep time to save its life. Ah, now maybe you're onto something - could it be a bodhran player? Maybe not; there are too many pauses.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Dave Bryant Date: 21 Oct 03 - 12:16 PM I can remember being woken up on the narrowboat, by a clang, clang, clang sound, it was quite loud and very scary - perhaps a WW2 mine bashing against the hull - OK perhaps not that likely in the Grand Union Canal. I jumped out of the bunk and searched the boat with the aid of the other friends aboard plus the dog which belonged to one of them. The noise had stopped and we couldn't find anything. Went back to sleep and was woken up yet again by the noise - I grapped the torch which I'd left by the side of the bunk and shone it in the direction of the sound, only to find that it was the dog wagging it's tail in it's sleep and hitting the grill of the (unlit) gas heater. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull Date: 21 Oct 03 - 12:27 PM Its a tiny little bodhran player, but he has dropped his bodhran, doesn't want to get out of practice, so is tapping on your floorboards, till he finds it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 21 Oct 03 - 12:28 PM But do check out the Death Watch Beetle possibility, seriously. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Rapparee Date: 21 Oct 03 - 01:35 PM My serious guess is insects. My unserious guess is that someone was buried in the ground beneath the void by a former owner and they are rapping to be let out, their boney fingers will fasten around the throat of whoever opens the floor, dragging the poor chap down to eternal perdition or at least scaring the poo out of him or her. The first is more probable, but but the second is way cooler. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: HuwG Date: 21 Oct 03 - 01:41 PM Following requests, I must correct my earlier post. For ".. no rodent in my house ever had ambitions to become a drummer. ", read, " ... no rodent in my house would ever sink so low as to become a drummer. " Apologies to Jerry, Dangermouse, Hammy the Hamster and any others affected. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: GUEST,Sibelius Date: 21 Oct 03 - 01:46 PM Gimme a break, McG, we don't have those here do we? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Mrs.Duck Date: 21 Oct 03 - 01:50 PM 'a little mouse with clogs on' :0) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: open mike Date: 21 Oct 03 - 02:30 PM i heard that many years after the fox sisters and family moved out of their house there was a skelton found under the foundation!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: GUEST,pdq Date: 21 Oct 03 - 03:21 PM As rare as it is for me to agree with McGrath, the Death Watch Beetle is a good possibility. The species mentioned, Xestobium rufovillosum, is European. The term comes from the beetles tendency to make a "ticking" sound when they bore through wood. The beetle is quite small, approx. 3/16 of an inch (or 5mm), usually less. The sound is very faint, hence the name. The sound was not noticed until late at night when ambient noise was very low. Several closely related families such as Bostrichidae, Lyctidae (Powder Post Beetles), and Psoidae all make some noise when actively chewing in/on wood and can also be considered suspects. Do you have firewood stored inside? If so, listen in the vicinity of the wood or move it to an outside storage area and see if the sound stops. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Raptor Date: 21 Oct 03 - 04:05 PM Its David Blaine and this is his next trick! Raptor |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: GUEST,Sibelius Date: 21 Oct 03 - 05:07 PM I have no firewood stored in the house, pdq, although I'm sure the thought has crossed the minds of many who have heard me play my guitar. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Mr Red Date: 21 Oct 03 - 05:09 PM Forgive me for acting the engineer and all that but wood expands and contracts with the heating and nails in floorbaords can give slightly in spurts. Of course it might be the TV aerial or the cable in the wind, it might be telephone ditto and one of the clips has rusted through. Get out those binoculors and start looking at the chimbly. It might be flashing (noun not verb). |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 21 Oct 03 - 05:31 PM Death Watch Beetle aren't actually that rare in Britain. Not that common in modern houses, but in old buildings it's one of the things to worry about, especially for roof timbers, particularly oak. Normally the critters live in the wild, where they do a useful job in helping dispose of fallen trees and suchlike. Most timber in modern houses isn't the type of wood they like, I gather - if it's not oak it doesn't suit their lifestyle or something. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Penny S. Date: 21 Oct 03 - 05:42 PM Remember those earthquakes? Could your house have settled a bit? Setting up heater or wood drying noises you haven't heard before? But check out the beetles. Also Death's Head Hawk Moth. Don't they bang a bit? Could be way off beam there. Record them, and find an entomologist - local Wildlife Trust, University, whatever. Or talk to it in Irish. Penny |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Blowzabella Date: 21 Oct 03 - 06:14 PM Didn't they have Death Watch Beatle to contend with in The Archers a couple of years ago? Any Archers addicts out there who might be able to help? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: Stilly River Sage Date: 21 Oct 03 - 08:50 PM Hmmm. . . Blowzabella, would that "Death Watch Beatle" be named George? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 21 Oct 03 - 10:23 PM RATS!!!
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