Please help me figure out what happened last night

[cinnamonbiscuit]

Please be kind, I’ve had about 1 hour of sleep after last night’s shenanigans! I’m not remotely into anything woo and not suggesting that’s what this is, as I know people often don’t like that on here! I just want people to tell me my own explanations aren’t silly.

My partner works nights so it’s just me and 18mo DD overnight. Last night I woke up at 3am convinced he had come home, I could hear him downstairs. When I realised what time it was I panicked slightly (he gets home at 6am usually), and then there was a massive bang in the house.

I absolutely shat it and lay there trying to decide whether or not it sounded like an intruder. After a few minutes of nothing else happening, I checked on DD and downstairs and nothing had moved and obviously no intruders.

We've spent the last few days putting things up into the loft, I’m thinking something must have fallen over, right?! It didn’t particularly sound like it came from the loft and I don’t know why I initially thought I could hear someone downstairs. Maybe I was dreaming? We are in an end terrace as well so sometimes noises travel from next door. It just sounded so loud and close we have once in the two years we’ve been here had a bird up there as well, maybe a bird knocked something over? The banging noises continued on and off all night, nothing as loud as that initial one though.

To add to this internal drama, we’ve had a very odd noise outside for the last two nights. It sounds like a neighbour’s dog coughing. Do dogs cough?! I realise I must sound absolutely bonkers, this is apparently what I’m like when I’ve had no sleep due to random banging/dog coughing every time I nearly drifted off. It sounds like a sort of honking/retching noise every couple of hours, coming from the same garden.

Please give me your reasonable explanations for all this. Feel free to gently take the mick, tbh I would as well. DH is going to go and have a look in the loft when he’s awake later. I’m really hoping something just fell over. Everything seems fine now in the rational light of day, but last night I was absolutely terrified. Has anyone else had really loud noises caused by birds or other animals in the roof/loft space?

@Ariela it’s sort of more honky than that. Also there couldn’t really be a deer in that direction- the way the houses are set up it’s three rows of terrace/semi detached in a sort of triangle shape and all our back gardens are in the middle enclosed by all the houses if that makes sense. That’s why it can only be a dog or smaller wild animal.

@ilovebagpuss yes tbh, we have only just moved our DD into her own room, and I think this has made me a bit more on edge than usual. Glad it’s not just me!

DH has just left for work. I’ll update if anything happens! Thanks everyone for not making fun of me!!

I woke up to a loud bang one night. Eventually searched the whole house and found nothing, so convinced myself I'd dreamt it.

About a week later I went into the spare room and closed the door behind me. And that's when I noticed that an entire shelf full of books had fallen off the wall. Didn't spot it in the night as I didn't look behind the door.

So it could be something odd like that maybe?

@BorisJohnsonsHair this is what I thought might have happened, but our house is tiny and I had a good look around today, nothing seems out of place

I sometimes get woken up by the noise of my 2 cats banging on the inside of the cat flap, usually there's an inquisitive badger on the other side 😀
Other times, I've been woken up by what turned out to be a bottle of shower gel throwing itself into the bath.....

Well last night was fine- I did have a bit of a moment when the bedroom door started jiggling around, but soon realised it was wind blowing through from DDs open window. No honking noises!

Hedgehog:
Fox:
Squirrel:

Twigs in the loft = possible squirrel, they can make a lot of noise banging about on our roof. You really don't want to let them stay, they can create a lot of damage. Contact pest control if you see or hear more evidence of them.

Is your loft bricked up or can you get into next doors loft ?

Animals are noisier than you think. Squirrels can be noisy buggers.

That's so weird! Last night my really old lab woke me up barking. He can't get up our stairs anymore and then he started really whimpering and crying, I heard him trying to get up the stairs so I went down to him. He's never done it before so I thought he was ill or hurt. Our patio doors were open and I tried to use the light from my kindle have a look round the garden but couldn't see anything but there was a massive full moon and it was 3am! Then loads of horses in the next field started whinnying like mad for about ten/ fifteen minutes.

Well that definitely sounds like an attempted break-in; opened patio door, dog barked, ran off and hid while you looked, headed off past the horses after a bit. Start locking the doors, but hopefully despite his age DDog has dissuaded them.

@MRex from those videos I think the fox sounds closest to what I heard! And thanks re squirrels, will keep an eye out.
@KangarooKenny I think it’s bricked up, I’ve not actually been up there myself, will ask DH. I certainly hope so our neighbours seem normal but you never know.
@Harrystylestutu that sounds scary! Are you able to safely leave patio doors open at night where you are? Or do you mean they had been opened?

I’m very glad it’s the weekend so I have DH home overnight! I’ve never felt unsafe in our house until now (even though I know the culprits are probably small and hairy ) and it’s really unnerved me!