Now, I just want to say that NOBODY is trying to bash in my front door or anything, and I’m not in any sort of mortal danger, but…
There are these weird thumping banging noises coming from outside my apartment, as if someone next door or upstairs is running around or, well, doing something to make noise. So why is this weird?
There aren’t any apartments next to me or above me. I live in an end unit on the top floor. There’s about 12 feet total of shared walls with other apartments - and these are the only place where the noise doesn’t seem to come from. I live on the seventh floor, so it’s not like someone could be running around just outside of my apartment.
It just started for no aparent reason at 4:06 this morning. Why do you always remember the exact minute that you were woken up in the night, anyway? It just re-started about 5 minutes ago.
It’s not, um, “regular” thumping, that is, it’s not the kind of noise associated with shagging neighbours. It’s an erractic kind of thumping, with the occaional sound like someone dragging heavy furniture across a hardwood floor above you. Well, maybe it could be shagging neighbours who are into weird stuff on the building’s roof. Who am I to say?
This morning when it started I was so freaked out by the weird noise that I went wandering around the apartment to investigate. Everywhere I went the sound seemed to be all around me and above me. I even went for a walk in the apartment hallway in my PJ’s, and the sound was out there, too.
A possibly unrelated but still freaky occurence was in the elevator where there were latex “medical” style gloves wadded up in the corner. I ust don’t want to know about that part.
Hmmmmm, is it just me or does this have a “VVC - The Return!” kind of vibe to it?
Don’t see the classic movie ‘Gaslight’ this weekend! :eek:
I heard noises on the roof of my house for months when I first moved in until I figured out they were the squirrels jumping form the trees to the roof and back again. Whew!
I was going to suggest squirrels also. If there isn’t a lot of insulation between your ceiling and the roof, it’s all a big resonating chamber up there, so relatively small sounds will be magnified.
Or it could be branches or acorns. I know this from experience. I have a large oak tree overhanging my bedroom, and the sound of acorns and dead limbs falling on the roof above me make it sound like I’m living in Kabul. Although since you live on the seventh floor,that would be one very large tree. Still, if something had made its way up there, gotten stuck, then started banging around in the wind… Is there a door to the roof that could be swinging in a wind?
My cats manage to make an inordinate amount of noise on my roof at night. You’d never believe they weigh 12 and 10 lbs. apiece, because it sounds like a herd of elephants!
We had a similar problem until we discovered that a bird was trapped in our attic. When the noises finally died down (it took a surprisingly long period of time for them to stop- maybe a week) we thought nothing of it. Several weeks later we went into the attic to bring down our fall clothing and there was the bird laying dead in the middle of the floor. We still don’t know exactly how it got into the roof, but it went out in a blaze of glory- it must have crapped over everything we have stored up there. I feel bad for it because it must have been panicked, but I was pissed because that was a large dry cleaning bill.
I don’t think that it’s squirrels, my building doesn’t have an attic. It’s a high rise style building, with concrete floors (and roof). So there’s no ductwork running through the solid concrete roof, either.
The access door to the roof is just up the stairs from my apartment. I’m trying to work up the nerve to go up on the roof the next time the weird noises start. (I have this paralysing fear of heights, so going on the roof is scary as hell without any weird noises.)
So far, I like Opal’s idea best. That’s been my personal suspicion, anyway.
You know, I should really get a webcam. I live on a busy innercity thouroughfare, and there’s all sorts of wacky shenanigans going on in the street down below (Esp. at night after the bars close!)
But there’s been a few miscellaneous bumps and thumps up there this afternoon. Perhaps I’ll take a peek while the sun is still out.
