BS: Floorboard tapping noise: what can it be

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)

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!

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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."

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

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?

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.

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!!!

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).

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.

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.

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!

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?

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...

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?!

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

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?

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

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?