It’s amazing how you can hear things at night that you never hear during the day.
The house structure creaks and groans ... wind noises from outside ...thuds .... noises with no explanation what so ever ... you are haunted by a ghostly noise pollution
Recently I’ve been plagued with just such a kind of noise pollution..
It’s a low frequency, humming noise that varies in pitch. It’s the rise and fall in pitch that keeps me awake.
Putting on the detective hat, I systematically went through the house ... turning off, one by one, anything that could possibly be the source of this mysterious sound.
But to no avail ... after a month ... the sound is still driving me nuts at night and I’m no closer to figuring out what the source of the noise pollution is.
Finally out of desperation I shut down the main circuit breaker in the house. Now absolutely nothing is running that could produce the noise pollution from within the house ... and yet ... it’s still there.
This piece of knowledge led me to the belief that it must be coming from something nearby but not actually in the house.
In my investigation I found out that the neighbor’s house closest to where I hear this noise has an old freezer in the garage, the garage also is the side that’s closest to my house .... hmmm ... could this be the source? Although I’ve yet to confirm this, it’s the most obvious answer for now.
I have also found from past experience that lower frequency sounds can actually use a structure ... such as a wall, as a sounding board.
Standing outside by the wall, you may not hear anything ... but stand on the other side and hum..hum..hum ... noise pollution.
When eliminating the source is not an option there may be other ways to deal with it, such as masking the noise with noise cancelling devices or white noise generators.
Noise masking techniques could be as simple as introducing soft music, a fan or similar device.
If these options are not for you than the old standby of earplugs are probably your best choice.
Let’s face it, sometimes you can’t eliminate the noise pollution ... so your best approach is to try and contain it.
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