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A month ago my girlfriend and I moved into a new place, and it has a big closet in the bedroom.

Since day 1, we kept hearing knocking noises on the wooden doors, only at night, and it happens every few minutes, and it really keeps me awake at night and most of the time waking me up.

Yesterday I put my phone inside the closet (closed the doors) where I think most of the noise come from, and I found that every 10-20 minutes there is really loud knocking, and in between this 10-20 minutes window. In between these 10-20 minutes window, there is sometimes small knocking.

Audio #1 - The knocking itself:

https://soundcloud.com/mzday/333-1?in=mzday/sets/weird-sounds

Audio #2 - Weird "Bzzzz" sound, and knocking on the door after that:

https://soundcloud.com/mzday/222-1?in=mzday/sets/weird-sounds

Notes:

  • The phone was in the same place the entire recording (6 hours in total, there is A LOT of knocking on the door).
  • We live in apartment building, top floor (third).
  • The sound indeed comes from the closet, I checked multiple times throughout this month.
  • I checked for worms that eat the doors maybe, but nothing (no white powder, no holes in the doors).
  • I put mouse food in each door to check if maybe its a mouse (I don't believe it is, based on the recording).
  • All sounds was when both of us was asleep, non of us get out of bed.

Any idea what else it could be?

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  • Hello, and welcome to Home Improvement. That buzz sounds like a person to me; add in the footsteps, and it may all be anthropogenic.
    – Daniel Griscom
    Commented Aug 19, 2020 at 11:20
  • @DanielGriscom Yes, I thought about it, my main problem is the closet, the footsteps was just weird because I never heard footsteps from below (there is no one above our floor).
    – Naor Hadar
    Commented Aug 19, 2020 at 11:33
  • @DanielGriscom The buzzing sound might be from the neighbors, I guess, but all the other noises comes from the closet and I heard it myself (Actually its the first time I heard the buzzing sound, just from the recording from last night).
    – Naor Hadar
    Commented Aug 19, 2020 at 11:35
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    Check with the landlord or superintendent if it is a solenoid (a thermally or electrically Actuated valve) They would know about them , some are adjustable to reduce the slamming or knocking. This can be for keeping the water hot in the pipes if it is every 10 or 20 minutes.
    – Ed Beal
    Commented Aug 19, 2020 at 13:34
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    In a similar vein, it could also be that there is a ventilation duct in the wall or floor of your closet, and sound is transmitting up that duct from a neighbor's apartment into your space. Ducts in walls are typically insulated to avoid that, but maybe because it was a closet, they did not insulate that duct.
    – JRaef
    Commented Aug 19, 2020 at 19:36

1 Answer 1

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It’s usually just the house settling depending on how old the closet is could be the cause if not that it could be cracking caused by the house settling if no cracks sometimes wood can release stress in them causing a weird pow noise.

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