To ask neighbours to help track down a beep?

[Notthemessiah]

For the last three days I've been able to hear a beep that happens every 43 seconds (yes I timed it) that seems to be coming from one of the three neighbouring gardens/sheds/garage but I can't get any closer to be able to tell exactly without asking the neighbours for help.

It's not terribly loud - if I close the window I can't hear it - and a lot of people probably wouldn't even notice. It sounds like the same noise my fire alarm makes when it's battery is low, like a little chirp. Thing is though, I find it hard to fall asleep at the best of times and this is just making it harder - stupidly I can't help but lie there and anticipate the next beep.

My wife thinks that if I shouldn't bother the neighbours and that they'll think I'm some kind of fussy idiot if I do for something that she (and almost certainly they) can barely hear and probably haven't even noticed.

Is she right? Would you think that is one of your neighbours came round asking the same? Should I just hope i can get used to it or it goes away?

@blanktimes

That's just what I was doing at 12am last night (feeling very much like someone would be reporting this strange bloke lingering around the streets to the police). It's how I've narrowed it down to three possible suspects but the layout means I would need to go onto their property or drives to narrow it down further and I did think that was definitely not on.

Its definately not a shed! Glad its not me causing your sleepness nights then! If my neighbour is on here I promise I will sort it tomorrow

My neighbours went away and their (rather quiet, but still) burglar alarm went off. We didn't have their number so had to ring their letting agent. They were mortified and really willing to help. I don't see a problem with asking the neighbours.

I have 2 smoke alarms in my shed. I bought them from Robert dyas just before lockdown with 10 year batteries. Both ran out in less than a month and because its shut we cant return them so they are in the shed (buried) until we can but luckily the bleeping isnt that loud. (The batteries arent replaceable or removable). I would hope my neighbours would say if they could hear them.

I have an implanted defibrillator in my chest. The beeping at specific times drive me mad till I realised it was me beeping and the battery was running low! Also my 90 year old neighbour is deaf and I had to go round and tell her her smoke alarm was beeping. She couldn’t hear it!

This would drive me insane, and to make it more annoying my other half can never hear it!!!!

I would definitely ask your neighbours for help in solving the mystery!

My mum stayed in my house a couple of years ago while we were away, and when we came back the little clock from the bedside table was missing. Found it buried under a pile of towels in the airing cupboard as she couldn’t stand the ticking 😬

www.reddit.com/r/whatisthisthing/comments/28zz5q/found_in_my_roof_wired_into_the_lights_beeps/

Could it be one of these?

Yep I'd need to ask. We don't own any clocks for this reason. Bloody ticking

@slothrunner

42 seconds sounds very coincidental otherwise, but I can't believe that this is in someone's house unless they are currently breaking the lockdown as it would be incredibly loud if I can hear it so clearly from here.

Mine are wired smoke detectors but always assumed the low battery beep was from them rather than a separate device tucked away in the ceiling. Maybe they all beep at 42/43 seconds though!

This says it beeps every 43 seconds

downloads.monoprice.com/files/manuals/10797_Manual_131204.pdf

And wired alarms still have back up batteries that need changing every now and then

It has to be an alarm. After 4 days of something similar, and only really hearing it at night, my neighbour found a smoke detector in their other neighbour's skip. We thought we were going crazy!

[quote Notthemessiah]@slothrunner

42 seconds sounds very coincidental otherwise, but I can't believe that this is in someone's house unless they are currently breaking the lockdown as it would be incredibly loud if I can hear it so clearly from here.

Mine are wired smoke detectors but always assumed the low battery beep was from them rather than a separate device tucked away in the ceiling. Maybe they all beep at 42/43 seconds though![/quote]
Maybe in a garage or workshop if you have any near you?

Hope you get it sorted, I wouldnt be able to stand hearing it ☹️

When we had similar in our own house, it turned out to be a battery-powered smoke alarm from our previous house, which had somehow been packed by the movers five years earlier into a box of crap that was never unpacked but had gone straight up to the attic of the new house, where presumably the battery ran down. I have excellent hearing, but it was really difficult to figure out where the sound came from, and DH couldn’t hear it at all!

Is it possible something similar has happened with your neighbours, but their dying smoke alarm ended up in a box in their shed?

We had this in a flat in London. Our bedroom backed on to gardens that were enclosed by two rows of houses so that acoustics were quite weird. Eventually we went and tracked it down, everyone was really nice about it. Turned out it was coming from the flat of an elderly deaf man but we couldn’t tell him as he couldn’t head the buzzer. Only worked it out from his downstairs neighbour letting us stand on their balcony. We left a note but moved out soon after anyway.

In bed now and it's still beeping away :(

I'll be popping round tomorrow to see if I can solve the mystery and just hope the neighbours are as happy to help as you lot!

Now where are my ear plugs......

We have a beep in our house at the minute, that's every half a minute or so.
Fridge freezer is dying and its the temperature alert beep for the freezer.
New one coming on Wednesday - can't switch it off without turning whole unit off and I need the fridge part still. It's driving me batty.
Apologies to my neighbours.

oh poor you, definitely ask them to help. We had one night a few years ago where a smoke alarm beeped, so I got up and went wandering around the upstairs trying to work out which one it was (we have quite a few plus carbon monoxide ones too). took one down sure it was the right one, went back to bed.... beep..... beep. argh got up went and took down the one in the other child's bedroom (in the dark of course both times trying to stand on a chair). got back in bed and another bloody beep. Eventually discovered it was one of the carbon monoxide ones. I can't remember if we took down 4 things or 5 that night trying to work it out.

I've had one going for months now every 38 seconds. I wonder if it is a neighbour's alarm box - do they have battery backup? It is much fainter now than it used to be so it's barely noticeable (or I've got used to it) but it was driving me nuts to start with!

It's possible they have hearing loss and can't hear it; high frequency sounds are the first to go and hardest to hear.

Both my in-laws wear hearing aids, which you wouldn't be able to see/tell by looking at them, and for a while there was a mystery beep in their house I was the only one who could hear. (It was the dishwasher when you just opened it at the end of a cycle without actually turning it off, it took some weeks of me exploring every visit before I figured it out. I was worried they thought I was making it up for a while!)

The hearing aids can recapture most sounds you'd want to hear - conversation, tv etc - but it's really difficult to capture high pitched noises like beeping. I've often thought more fire alarms and co2 alarms and things like that should be wired so they flash the lights on and off or something like that, I think a lot more people suffer minor hearing loss than people realise.

I would probably take some batteries around with me, then you are being super helpful x

I need to know what the beep is now!. I’d be happy to help if you asked OP. Hope you find it.

Taking batteries is a good shout.

Hope you managed to sleep op. We had an unexplained beeping in our hallway for almost a week before dh realised he'd turned off the alarm system control panel at the wall and the batteries were low 🤦‍♀️

One neighbour ruled out so far (who was very helpful and didn't think me mad afaik). We both seemed to think it was coming from the same place so that's where I'm off to during my next break from working from home!