What's that noise?
Should I check or stay safe in bed or my chair?
Does it need attention?
Answers
Mobile Phones
Incoming calls on what's up or mails can trigger sounds or even vibrations which wake you. Solutions: Turn off sound to vibrate, leave mobile phone on the breakfast table. Leave phone on the laptop. Keep in room for emergency but on the other side of the room.
Fax machines can print out long messages, orders from China sent to wrong numbers, during their working day which could be at night where you are.
Wear ear plugs.
Set clock alarm and leave phone in another room.
Set clock alarm and have bedside landline for emergencies.
Ask family and fiends not to send texts or messages to landlines - especially when travelling to foreign time zones.
Animals and birds, domestic or wildlife:
Cats, dogs, squirrels running along a fence, birds, pigeons, foxes mating at night (screaching in your garden or the road outside), spiders cockroaches, insects in a plastic bag left on the floor, insects in a chocolate wrapper. Monkeys on the loose can climb up to higher floors of apartment blocks, onto balconies, into flats if windows and doors are left open.
Bears foraging fro food in bins or smelling sandwiches and food wrappers left in cars outside house or in the garage.
Birds such as kids in New Zealand jump all over cars in car parks by and eat the windscreen wipers.
Crickets.
Bird calls.
Birds hopping along balconies, perched on railings, perched on a plant singing or calling to other birds, sitting on a fridge on the balcony. (Singapore.)
Dawn chorus of birds.
Pigeon or sea gull perching on windowsill of hotel. (Fishguard, Wales.)
Dogs barking in distance.
Cows outside window in rural areas.
Cocks crowing.
Weather
Rain on windows and rooftops.
Thunder - you were woken by the lightning despite curtains being closed.
Dustbin lids and loose items being blown about.
Hailstones on roof.
Electrical and Mechanical
Door opens and shuts in the wind caused by draughts from open windows in bathroom.
Fridge door left ajar makes a beep.
Oven timer accidentally set beeps when the hour or 24 hours is up.
Timer on phone not cancelled.
Watch in bedside drawer bleeps every hour, not normally heard, but heard if drawer is open or contents are moved.
Air conditioning turns on and off with temperature changes at intervals throughout the night.
Lights in hall activated by late night or early morning neighbours or cleaners.
Cars, Vehicles, Accidents
Cars starting up nearby.
Car doors slamming as diners from restaurants go home at midnight or 1 am after you've gone to bed; then half an hour later, staff having locked up the restaurant will pick up their cars from side streets where they can park all day for free.
Electrical whine from milk floats doing dawn deliveries before rush hour.
Grinding noise from trucks / lorries collecting wheelie bins, lifting bins, shouts from the man at the back to the driver.
Bang of cards colliding at traffic lights.
Bang of moving car hitting stationery car.
Repeated bangs of aggrieved spouse damaging car of spouse or rival.
Story
Bumps In The Night
Floor shaking from earthquake - over my bed int he UK. I woke thinking it was a burglar. Nobody there. Decided it must be underground or overground trains. Read in the newspaper next day that there had been a minor earthquake tremor felt in London, England.
Plumbing
Noise when somebody else in building uses shower, toilet, or even washes hands during the night. Caused by air lock?
Nose from people throwing rubbish down internal chutes on back balconies. (Singapore condo.)
Tapping, Banging and Booms
Tapping - could be dripping tap.
Dripping from blocked gutter during or after rain. (Check gutter in daylight with ladder and torch and get it fixed.)
Window open causes curtain to blow about so that the curtain puller, a metal or wood or porcelain pull cord handle strikes wall or glass.
Thunder.
Overhead passenger planes.
Military planes on an air force or army exercise. (Singapore.)
Helicopters seeking criminals.
Planes spraying crops, detecting haze, routine patrols.
Sirens
Fire alarm.
Emergency.
Exercise for emergency.
Voices on Loudspeakers
Emergency.
Call to prayer during the night and at dawn in Muslim areas and Arabic countries (woke us during our honeymoon in Morocco.)
Reflected Noise
Sounds of people in gardens or garages next door or street outside sound as if they are in your home.
Noise on staircase outside your bedroom in hotel, or alongside your flat.
Noise of lift on your floor in hotel.
Clattering of staff serving early morning breakfasts in hotel.
Slamming of nearby hotel bedroom doors of guests leaving early for work to beat rush hour or for early flights.
Doors linking bedrooms in hotels although locked shut can give the impression that people talking next door or playing TVs are in the same room or your sitting room area.
Tips - Phone A Friend
When I was living alone, before going to investigate a noise I would alert somebody else. In the daytime I would call a neighbour or family member, or carry my mobile speaking to them as I walked.
At night I would leave a message on their answering machine asking them to call me back next day to check I was OK. I had one friend who also lived alone and told me: "If ever you are in trouble, call me any time, day or night."
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.
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