If it would happen to you, you would not make fun of us.

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Originally Posted by Robert Gift

Possibly a mild variation of Meniere's disease?

May even be related to blood sugar level.

Some medications will cause perception of sounds and higher blood sugar levels or chocolate may cause such perceptions.

After a friend eats too much chocolate, he has audible effects.
If he vigorously exercises, or goes to a dry sauna and sweats out, it diminishes or disappears.

If you turn off water, open a line to relieve residual perssure.
Vibration from water or gas lines coming into the house?
Neighbor's machinery?
Usually soil will absorb and attenuate noise, but a pipe can transmit sound well.

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Sorry, incorrect web address in previous answer. Please go to http://homepages.tesco.net/~JohnDawes2/

Ack! I am having this same problem and it is driving me C-R-A-Z-Y! I feel comforted knowing that other people hear it too. I live very rurally (Monroe, WA) and I noticed it about 3 months ago. I shut off everything electrical in the house... still hear it. Just tried turning off the water supply to the toilets... still hear it. Go outside of our house on the deck... still hear it. We have little to NO traffic noise, so it is not that. The noise is not constant... there will be long humming periods that last 1+ minutes, then pulses. I have a fan blowing on me at night which must be white "enough" noise to help me sleep. What's interesting is I have also been hearing it at work, intermittent bursts, but ALL day long. I can almost feel the vibration, a low hum. I really want it to stop :(... not sure what to do...

Thank you dgbowers10 for recommending this website. I knew that only 5 % of the people hear it and of course, the ones who do not hear it think that we are crazy. My husband and I thought that it was the traffic (even if we are 1.5 miles from a main road) as we hear the humming noise more on Friday nights when people go out or for instance during a long weekend like this one (Memorial Day). We also hear it less when it is raining.
As I already said in a previous message, the noise machine helps me sleep most of the nights. Though, when the humming noise is very loud, nothing can help.

If you're being bothered by low frequency noises that nobody else can hear find someone who wears a digital hearing aid that they can adjust to detect low frequencies. It is said that the human hearing range is from 20hz to 20,000 khz - but only a minority of people can hear 50hz unless its really loud - so they don't hear the transformer hum of electrical equipment. My hearing threshold is way below 20hz. My auditory world is very different from most other people's. I also hear very high frequency noises as well... I'm autistic.

Thank you for your response. You are right. Fortunately, we will move out of this home soon! The landlord asked us to pay a lot of fees and complains about anything to give us a hard time.
That's life!
We will do what you suggest if we have to go to court and prove that the humming noise really exists.

I started hearing the "hum" in 2007 in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Initially, it occurred as two longs, a short, and a long: hmmm, hmmm, hm, hmmm with the emphasis on the last "syllable". Like virtually everyone else who is assaulted by the noise, I considered various alternatives: ear trouble, mental health, a water pump, furnace, truck engine, generator, trains, US Navy ELF experiment at the University of Calgary, cellphone tower emissions, aurora borealis research, long range ELF from Alaska, even Russian ELF or alien intervention. I tried to identify others who had heard the noise: my family members did from time-to-time, a neighbour a half-kilometre away did. My horses appeared to notice it. Like others, I got up in the night, driving around at 5 a.m. to try to find the source. I heard it ten k. from my home one night. During the daytime, I heard it by a deserted lake in a forest near Banff and another time way out on the bald Prairies. The sound extended from a couple of hours during the night to nearly 24/7 towards the end of my stay in Calgary. Once when it was particularly bad, I vomited. My blood pressure became very high and stayed up over time. I reported the sound to the Federal Government. I loved Calgary, but had to leave it for the sake of my health. I incurred huge expense to move my belongings and creatures. I now live peacefully in an area where cellphones have difficulty working and I never hear any humming. As a loyal Canadian citizen, I am truly saddened that the situation has been allowed to continue so long.

Thank you so much I thought I was going crazy to me it sounds like a giant bee hive around my house or a trian on idle mode. I don't know but it drives me crazy!

Wow, I am amazed at the activity this issue generates. I made my first post in February of 2007 and my last in March of 2007. I have a touch of OCD (self diagnosed) and I searched for an answer for a solid month before I gave it up.

I'm sorry to say that I never did find an answer. The noise still exists and I am still the only one in my home that can hear it. I firmly believe that it is not in my head, not the plumbing, electric, wind or anything else that can be identified and resolved. I believe, like most of you, that the noise is environmental. It resonates throughout my entire house, out into the neighborhood, and based on all the posts, around the world. As I stated in my March 2007 response, I did purchase HEPA (high efficiency particulate arrestor) air filters for my home. I run one in my bedroom on medium high, and the noise of the fan does a nice job of masking the humming noise. Without it I would have little chance of getting ANY sleep. Unless you are one of the lucky few that actually has some type of mechanicle issue in the home that can be identified and corrected, I believe some form of white noise is the best solution. For me the HEPA filter did the trick. Hope this helps.

I DID finally find an answer... Since no one else could hear it, my wife kept telling me it was all in my head. I couldn't believe it, but it turned out, in a way, she was right. In my case it was a type of Tinnitus ("ringing in the ear"). The very low pitched, "foghorn" type sound I was hearing really was being created by a problem in my ear, so it's no wonder no one else could hear it. Google "Tinnitus" and you will a great deal written about it. Thankfully, mine eventually subsided, although I'm not sure which of the many solutions I attempted actually solved the problem (or if it was just the passage of time).

Good luck to everyone.

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In my case it was a type of Tinnitus ("ringing in the ear").

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And yet another plumbing mystery solved! Thanks for the update, Tom

We moved from house where noise/vibration was actually traced to a water treatment plant, and possibly the underground water pipes throughout the town from the drainfields to the plant.
Lucky us, we then moved to a house that is directly ajacent to a huge church "compound" and they have so many air conditioners on so many large facilities, it is creating industrial size noise and vibration. They ignored the letter I sent asking if they could alleviate the issues, but nothing to date. I do hear low frequency noise and pick up vibration through my feet, which does not help the problem. I've found through research that the UK actually is studying and trying to do something about this issue that affects people healthwise the same way high frequency noise does. Most authorities do not deal with anything under 40-45 decibels, and LFN falls way down in the megahertz levels. It also has to be measured using the A weighting and not the C, as that does not capture it. The LFN is acoustic and travels a long distance from the source, as well as up close, as we are experiencing. We hope to move soon to a home we listened in for a while to determine if it is quiet and well away from anything industrial, including schools, shopping malls, etc. anywhere that operates high level a/c's, pumps, etc.

Have u condisered the ringer's syndrome in your case maybe, if you siad that , the sound doesn't go away with earplugs?

It may be Tinnitus or a form of maybe.

DARKSEID

It may possilbly be a alternate form of Tinnitus that might be causing u discomfort with the low humming noise.

Since you did say you tried earplugs and it still could be heard, maybe that could be the culprit.

Have you ever been exposed to loud or constant loud noises for along period?

I too use the HEPA filter to sleep at night and it really helps. And I don't think the problem is with my ears. We were on vacation and away from the house for one month, and upon return I didn't hear the noise until we were back for three days - then it started again. And I never heard the noise when we were away. We had a second vacation, this time away for two weeks and the same thing happened - on the third day back I started to hear the noise. Then, last weekend the noise stopped for two days but started again. Sometimes loud, sometimes soft, but there. It is driving me crazy - I must figure out what is causing it. Based on the fact that it starts up again after we return home, I think maybe it has something to do with the flow of water through the pipes. CAn anyone think of anything else??

I have found something puzzling. I have heard the noise for about 10 months. However, when we came home after a months vacation (I did not hear the noise in any of places we went on vacation), I did not hear the noise until we were home for several days. Same thing happened when we went away for two weeks - did not hear it in any other location. Did not hear the noise when we returned home - until the third day back! I can't explain it except that during our absence, we didn't use electricity or water. Does this make any sense??

I had an obnoxious humming noise in our home. It was caused by the flapper in one of the toilets.

I found it by:
1) Lifting off the top the toilet.
2) Sticking my hand down into the water.
3) Gently pushing on the flapper.
4) I found a flapper that was allowing a small amount of water to leak under the flapper. This apparently caused the vibration. The vibration was enough to cause the pipes in the wall to also vibrate. That initially made it very difficult to locate the cause.

The solution was to buy a new flapper for about $1.75 at a hardware store to replace the one that was leeking causing the vibration. When I did this the humming stopped.

What is the pitch of your roof?

I'm not sure of the pitch of the roof. It's not flat. Why?

I have a similar problem in Canada. I noticed it about 8 months ago and I can't zero it down to any appliance. I hear it all times of the day. It's more common in the basement. I have a walkout basement. I can also hear it in my garage which is concrete and set into the hill, it is detached and 25 ft from the house. I'm a realtor and I was in a house 2 miles from my property and heard the hum in a vacant house. It's a low level hum, almost like a vibration. I think it's generated from the city somewhere and the vibration is picked up in the foundation. I think that the only thing that you could probably do is have some kind of cancellation vibration or something.