Do neighbors move their furniture at two in the morning? Explanations of the noise you hear every night

If you complain about your neighbors who move their furniture every night after midnight without taking into account how you feel, and if you felt fear when you knew that the upper floor was vacant and that no one inhabited it, then you are one of the hundreds of thousands who have gone through the same experience, and find no clear explanation for it except for some of the things that About ghosts and metaphysics, but what if you knew that nature itself is the cause of what you hear every night.

Nature speaks

If what you hear at night in coastal and rural areas is a frequent and disturbing "crackling" sound, then some scientists call this phenomenon "tinnitus" and it is an auditory that 2% of the world's population can hear according to some estimates.

It's not clear when the tinnitus first started, or when people started noticing it, but it did start to get media attention in the 1970s, in Bristol, England.

After receiving several separate reports, the British newspaper The Sunday Mirror asked in 1977 "Have you heard the buzz?"

Hundreds of messages came confirming hearing voices at different levels, some described them as the faint roar that comes from afar, and others described it as a dormant diesel engine, but most of them agreed to hear these sounds at night, and it was not clear at the time any logical explanation for this.

But let's first assume that you rented a hut on a small lake, perhaps the first thing you will notice is that you will see the people around you, but you will not hear their conversations, or to be precise, those conversations will not be distinguished, but with the beginning of the night hours you will start hearing their conversations as if they were sitting next to you.

This phenomenon is caused by the refraction of sound waves, whose contrast plays a major role in heat.

Simply put, the speed of sound waves depends on the temperature of the air, as sound waves move faster in warmer temperatures and slower in colder temperatures.

Traffic neighbors

You are not alone in this world who complains about hearing the sounds of moving things coming from neighbors ’homes late at night, specifically the so-called sound of moving marble balls or furniture dragging.

The truth, though, is that the sounds of noise that move into your apartment have nothing to do with the tenants on the top floor but more to do with the ancient architecture and infrastructure of the building itself.

Suppose you live in an old building from the early 1900s, or even a newer building that was constructed more than 10 years ago.

In both cases, there are several factors that contribute to hearing strange sounds clearly in the silence of the night, which are the internal systems for heating or cooling, water pipes as well as insulation systems between walls, ceilings and floors, and what cannot be expected is that the sounds passing through these systems can be very similar to the sound of steps Or drag heavy objects like furniture, or even rolling marble balls.

Preston S.

Wilson, a professor of acoustics, dynamic systems and control programs in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, said a so-called "hydraulic shock" may be the source of the sound. It is called a "water hammer" and is the crackling sound of the tube when the water flow is severely closed.

Heating, cooling, water and gas pipelines may be common causes of noisy noises at night (Pixabay).

Direction of sound

There are other explanations for the sounds we clearly hear at night, and that is that they come from another direction, contrary to what we think.

"Sounds can be amplified or changed in pitch depending on the medium that carries the sound waves, and the sound that we hear and think comes from the upper floor does not necessarily mean that the sound originated from above us," engineer Chung Ki Sen, at the Institute of Engineers of Singapore (IES), told the Sunday newspaper. directly".

He continued, "The sound may have originated from another place, and be heard as it travels horizontally or vertically."

Crispin Casimir, a consulting engineer at an engineering company, told Home & Decor that reinforced concrete structures are very effective in transmitting sounds, and sound can also travel through open windows in adjacent apartments.

Experts believe that, in some cases, the sounds heard at night may be caused by the expansion or contraction of pipes or building materials inside the walls and floors, which transmit even that you do not hear them from their true source.

According to the American Institute of Physics, physicist Andy Piasik explained these sounds, especially the sounds of moving marbles or pins and "crackling" sounds, that the noise can change its original image as it dissipates in buildings, which means that the original sound could be very different from the final noise you hear. The sound of the moving balls is caused by a different original sound, such as flowing water or perhaps bubbles in plastic or steel pipes inside the building, or air trapping inside the pipes.

Assuming that it is a real movement from neighbors, and you hear it clearly in the late night hours, the type of flooring used is a major reason to amplify the sound that reaches you in your room, especially in homes that depend in their designs on smooth surfaces such as marble, porcelain and wood, and in the case of cork and carpets, do not transmit Sounds just as annoying.