Why is my apartment rattling?

November 13, 2007 6:24 PM

What is making certain metal objects (light, oven rack, etc) in my apartment vibrate?

There are several metal things in my apartment that vibrate intermittently. The oven rack, the door to the circuit breaker, an Ikea clip lamp attached to the bookcase next to my bed...all of them will randomly start shaking/vibrating, causing them to rattle. The rattling will stop if I adjust the oven rack or slide the circuit breaker door back into place. If I move the lamp or move to a different part of the bed (sit up, for example), the lamp rattling will stop rattling.

I notice it more late at night, but it happens at all times of day. I notice it more in the fall/winter, but I'm not sure if it was just harder to hear in the summer because of more street noise, or if it didn't happen over the summer. I live in a three-story building in Brooklyn, over a bar (but it's not that; it happens when the place is closed) and under another apartment. We do not share any walls with other apartments, just hallways or outside. We are .16 miles from the subway, but it happens far less than subway trains actually go by--I notice it maybe 3-5 times a week. It's the half of the apartment away from the street, so I don't think it's big trucks or traffic. The vibrating objects are on opposite walls, both of which have pipes in them (bathroom on one side and kitchen on the other; I know the bathroom pipes are less than a year old but no idea about the kitchen). There are many metal objects around the apartment that aren't doing this.

Ideas? I had insomnia the other night and trying to figure out the cause of the vibrations was driving me crazy. Up until then I had always just blamed the bar music, but it started up after the bar had closed for the night.

posted by min to Home & Garden (9 answers total)

Best answer: In my house, it's the heat running that does exactly this. Drives me crazy to the point where I take off all of the stove burners unless I'm using them, because the rattling just won't stop.
posted by xo at 6:31 PM on November 13, 2007

Chances are this is other people in the building. In fact I'm going to speculate that this is someone's washing machine going through the spin cycle. Even if you don't hear anything, low-frequency oscillations are probably resonating through the joists and framing. I live in a very large 120-year old house and it's normal for the washer in spin cycle to cause glasses in the kitchen to tinkle 3 rooms and 40 feet away... I've observed this many, many times.
posted by zek at 6:34 PM on November 13, 2007

P.S. Next time this happens put your ear to the wall and see if you hear anything coming through the structure.
posted by zek at 6:35 PM on November 13, 2007

250m from the subway doesn't sound like far to me at all so that'd be my guess; maybe it's just the larger trains that cause rattling. If it's early morning, maybe there's a big freighter going past then when normal passenger services aren't on.

Can you discern movement in the walls that causes the rattles? What sort of frequency are we talking here?

If it were pipes rattling, you'd hear the pipes rattle.

It sounds like blu-tack would fix most of your rattles so that'd be what I'd do and stop worrying about the cause if you can't control it.
posted by polyglot at 6:35 PM on November 13, 2007

It may be an occasional subway train that's moving slower than the one you usually hear. Not all subway trains are people trains; occasionally you will see a trash train or other sorts of utility trains moving on the subway tracks.
posted by ikkyu2 at 7:08 PM on November 13, 2007

Response by poster: XO--good thought. I wonder if it's the heat, since I'm suddenly noticing it much more now that it's cold. We haven't had the heat on all the time, but my neighbor might have.

Zek, alas, no, it is not a washer. I only wish we had a washer in the building! I will try listening at the walls next time, though. It generally has seemed limited to these three things, but I haven't examined the walls closely when it's happening.

Polygot--it's the NYC subway system, so there aren't any freight trains, but they do send through cleaning cars late at night, maybe those are heavier? I had thought it wasn't the trains because it's so unpredictable, but could it be a cummulative effect--the oven rack gets moved a little each time and then finally is lose enough to shake? I'm not sure what you mean by frequency; the door shakes enough to be visibly moving but not enough that you'd notice it without the noise, but you can't see the light moving at all.

I'm not worried about the building falling down or anything, and it's easily stopped--it's more the what-the-hell-IS-this that you get after living someplace for a while.

Thanks for the replies everyone! I'd love to hear any other ideas.
posted by min at 7:10 PM on November 13, 2007

Response by poster: ikkyu, your comment appeared between preview and post. I assumed that it would be the faster trains that would make more vibrations and there are no express trains on that line at night, but if it was slower trains that would make more sense.
posted by min at 7:13 PM on November 13, 2007

I used to live a block from the Brooklyn Queens Expressway, on the 3rd floor of an old building. When heavy trucks would pass by on the elevated roadway of the BQE, we'd feel the vibrations in our apartment, similar to what you're describing.

Being on the top floor of a building can actually magnify these kind of vibrations.
posted by Artifice_Eternity at 8:55 PM on November 13, 2007

Best answer: Definitely picking up vibrations from the blower in your furnace. When new, the machinery is fairly well-balanced. As they age, though, they lose that smoothness. Vibrations ensue.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:16 AM on November 14, 2007