To those suggesting the android mice noise is outside, the OP said she went outside and it was faint and from inside.
Voltage detector! That’s it!
I can’t remember whether ours thought there was voltage everywhere in the house or nowhere, but either way it wasn’t particularly helpful.
Just to add to the possibilities; our microwave oven beeps intermittently if the timer expires and we don’t go over and clear the setting.
That’s what I thought at first when I stood on one side of my house (the side away from the neighbor). Depending on where you are outside, it could be deceptive. I swear I could’ve written the OP a few weeks ago.
I suggest taking up Zulema’s suggestion and checking your carbon monoxide detector. Mine emitted the same un-locatable beep.
Do you have a septic tank? The new ones have an alarm for if they get too full and haven’t been pumped.
No septic tank. And we just replaced the batteries in all three smoke detectors. Still beeping.
Stupid question…do you have any old smoke detectors lying around? Maybe in a drawer or shoved in the back of a cabinet? My brother went crazy trying to find a beeping and that’s what it turned out to be. There was a Modern Family episode based around that as well.
Any UPSes that might be on their last leg and starting to act wonky?
I don’t think there are any old smoke detectors. If there were, they’d be many, many years old and thus would be unlikely to be beeping at this point.
The only UPS used to be connected to my computer. It’s now out in the garage, unplugged. When I went to the garage, I could definitely tell the beeping isn’t coming from there.
the alien tech installed in your brain needs new batteries.
Out of curiosity why is powering down the house such a big deal? It’s 10 seconds of flipping switches off. It would narrow the search considerably.
It’s not–I think that’s the next thing I"m going to try, but the DVR is recording right now so I don’t want to mess it up. I’ll try it after it’s over.
Is it bad of me if I was looking forward to having your descent into madness documented here on the Dope? Each post of yours becoming less and less coherent until it all finally builds up and you go full blown crazy and burn the house down.
Agrees with this. Story happens: I bought M a spiffy electronic cork screw last year. Of course, he loved it, he loves all things techy. Last time I was visiting, I heard a sad, heartfelt cherp from a starving gadget. M couldn’t hear it. I could only hear it when we were on the first floor. It made me even nuttier than I usually am.
After much searching and trying to isolate the noise, I was helping him with dinner, opened a drawer looking for something and the darn thing beeped.
Is a fridge door just slightly open? That happened to me once - drove me batty.
I’m confused about the shut the power off suggestion. If it’s a battery-operated something, then turning off the AC won’t affect that.
Of course, I suppose it will go toward proving that it isn’t an AC thing but aren’t these annoying little, usually start in the middle of the night things, on batteries?
I had a similar problem of beeping in my house, which I traced to a stationary exercise bike on which a pile of cloths got dumped.
The weight of cloths actuated a switch of the beeper. It took me a looong time to trace it to the bike.
Had this happen twice. Both times it was CO detectors that were on the verge of failing.
The reason we had problems finding them is they were both plugged in in out of the way places, one behind the china cabinet in the living room, one behind the microwave.
The second time it happened, behind the china cabinet was the first place we checked (after confirming it wasn’t one of the smoke detectors). Then when we confirmed that one was fine, we went mad trying to find the other. I struck pose normally only seen in Legend of Zelda games when you get a new item, when I finally found the damned thing.
That was my thought as well. I can’t think of anything in my house that’s AC-powered and does a “help me” beep. Of course, maybe I just haven’t encountered it yet…
(Edit: Forgot the CO detector. I switched to battery-powered after our old one would let out a loud shriek any time the power fluctuated enough. It was in our bedroom.)
Infovore, any chance someone’s planted one of these to drive you crazy?
That was our mystery beep. Made more maddening by the long gaps between beeps (like, ten minutes or so).