to think this is really bizarre? Is my house about to fall down?

[CocktailQueen]

In the last couple of days I have heard an odd ticking/small creaking sound coming from the wall of the staircase. The other side of the wall is the spare room. There are no pipes or anything in the wall that could be making the noise (as far as I know). My office is right opposite the wall so I'm here all day and I haven't heard these noises before. WTF do you think it could be?? Heating related??

Mice make that noise as they chew and scratch at things. ~O>

When the heating goes on and off the wood on the stairs may be expanding and contracting with the change in temperature. It is winter so this is the most likely. Turn the heating off and turn it off for 24 hours if it is still creaking then get this looked at. Have you had any work done or any work done around your property that could be causing any subsidence in or outside. Are there cracks anywhere else. How old is our building buildings settle and move change ever so slightly over time and this is normal. If you are worried ask a structural engineer or a builder to look at your house they will know what the signs are like floor and window levels changing. Good luck op.

Obviously without seeing it I can't really comment but, generally speaking, you only really need to worry when things start visibly moving and even then most buildings can put up with quite a bit of movement before anything serious happens.

Opinions above are very good - as bella says, how old is the house? Also, is the wall an internal or external wall?

Wow, a structural engineer - fab!! It's a load bearing wall but internal.

The house was built in the 80s - typical estate house.

There is some cracking where the walls meet the ceiling, also a couple of vertical cracks - in fact, since you're here, we have a fairly new vertical crack that has cracked one of our bathroom tiles - is this something to worry about??

Will get dh up in the loft to check for mice. Little sods. It's not a scurrying noise though, just a ... ticking. But not regular ticks.

Don't think it's the wood of the stairs making the noise- it's def coming from the wall.

Try turning the boiler off (if it's not too cold!) and see if you still hear the noise after an hour or so.

Oops, no idea what happened to first line of my post?

Firstly, should caveat this by the fact that I normally deal with big buildings rather than houses but the principles are the same.

You'll always get some cracking in any house; if it's timber framed then it will move with the seasons, expanding and contracting. Unfortunately, we love to go and put plaster everywhere which isn't as great at this and so you end up with little cracks at joints, like the ceiling and walls. Hairline cracks is perfectly normal. If it's big enough to get a £1 in then that's when you need a bit of advice!

Tiles in the bathroom are tricky, is it just one tile and if so, where in the wall is it? It's odd that it's gone through the tile and not the grout but you may have super strong grout and brittle tiles so path of least resistance.

Now, back to your ticking! If it's internal then it's not as easy to see whether there's anything happening at ground level that might be causing it. Mice are definitely an option worth ruling out, or squirrels as my parents had one year. Wasps make a horrid noise too but you'd probably have noticed those if they'd managed to get into an internal wall!

One other simple thing to rule out is to check your cold water storage tank. In winter when the temperature changes it can affect the ball cock ever so slightly which means that it might not quite be closing the valve, or it might be filling just to the level where it's high enough to trickle over into the overflow. I know it sounds completely unrelated, but sounds can travel in funny ways through materials so worth checking nonetheless!

Good luck :)

P.S. And of course Boiler option as noted above. Pipes are a pain for making funny, inexplicable noises! Make sure all radiators are bled too as you want to get any air out of the system.

Could it be a colony of Death Watch Beetles? I don't know how to make the link but if you google them there is a video which gives the irregular ticking sound they make. Though I think they tend to live in old wooden buildings so yours sounds a bit too modern.

We've had a ticking wall for a few months now (timber frame construction). Apparently it's death watch beetle which is actually quite harmless but got it's name because in ye olde days people thought the ticking was a countdown to death. Bloody squatters.

oops x post

Yes, your house is definately about to fall down.

Really, I doubt it's falling down. We had Deathwatch Beetles too but they normally hibernate at this time of year.

PeriodFeatures -what a great name! Thanks :)

Manderley - have just checked the bathroom crack. It gos down vertically from one corner of the window, thin crack in plaster, grout unaffected, nice thick sparkly tile unaffected, thinner white one under that cracked, bath under that, fine. Does that sound OK?

And thanks for all your advice :) will try to cross those off the list

MIL's house did almost actually fall down - a builder spotted it just in time and it had to be shored up with buttresses. It had MASSIVE cracks (like you could put your whole hand in) between walls and ceilings and between outer walls and perpendicular internal walls, and the floors in the upstairs rooms sloped down towards the middle. I was constantly saying I was worried about it and being poo-pooed by MIL. I was literally scared to go to sleep when we stayed there.

That's what a house that is about to fall down looks like so I think yours sounds OK.

TheFirstToel - argh! OK, fair enough, mine is not doing that. Thanks :)

Update - it's mice!!! Got the Xmas decs out of loft and they had been nibbled. Mouse poo. Gah! So have traps and will put them up there pronto. Gah gah. Thanks all!

Phew! That's good news!