There is a weird noise coming from my neighbor's garage.

December 22, 2024 3:44 PM

What is this noise that comes from my neighbor's garage 24/7?
posted by SageTrail to Grab Bag (16 answers total)

You need to set your link to be public please. Without hearing it my first guess is an ultrasonic pest repeller.
posted by phunniemee at 3:50 PM on December 22 [4 favorites]

Response by poster: Sorry. I think the link is now set to public. Feel free to let me know if it is not. Thank you.
posted by SageTrail at 4:06 PM on December 22

Now that I've heard it my guess is a rock tumbler.
posted by phunniemee at 4:13 PM on December 22 [6 favorites]

Rock tumbler was my thought, too.
posted by bowbeacon at 4:26 PM on December 22 [1 favorite]

Rock tumbler is a good guess. Or potentially an unbalanced/failing clothes dryer.
posted by gemmy at 4:28 PM on December 22 [3 favorites]

Sounds to me like something on a belt drive where the belt is getting old or the pulley needs to be oiled - like a fan or similar.
posted by Mid at 4:31 PM on December 22 [7 favorites]

Rock tumbler noise video, because the internet.
posted by Mid at 4:33 PM on December 22 [1 favorite]

That sounds a lot like the way my dryer sounded when the rollers went bad - it was so amazingly loud and screeching in a similar rhythmic way. This sounds like a muffled version of that to me. A repair guy took it apart and replaced the rollers and it’s much quieter again.
posted by blacktshirtandjeans at 5:31 PM on December 22 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: I agree that it sounds like a dryer ... but in this case it would be a dryer that runs 24/7!
posted by SageTrail at 5:45 PM on December 22

The rock tumbler folk on TikTok runs theirs for months at a time
posted by funkaspuck at 5:54 PM on December 22 [5 favorites]

We had a rock tumbler and that's the first thing I thought. We ran it for weeks at a time, though it wasn't that loud.
posted by cocoagirl at 8:12 PM on December 22 [1 favorite]

cocoagirl: though it wasn't that loud.

So, a step up from the average rock tumbler you have people making sea glass using a concrete mixer. That's going to be way louder.
posted by Stoneshop at 1:10 AM on December 23 [1 favorite]

Rock tumbler seems like a good guess. Another possibility is a hydroponics system with a failing pump (I say because we had one in a lab that made a bad noise not unlike that).
posted by hydropsyche at 4:16 AM on December 23 [1 favorite]

24/7? That sounds (figuratively and literally) like an HVAC issue to me, maybe a wonky damper on a whole-house fan.
posted by cupcakeninja at 6:11 AM on December 23 [2 favorites]

Yeah that sounds like when a bathroom vent fan went bad (not sure what the issue was— renter here.) I didn’t run it 24/7 but can imagine there are some hvac systems that do run all the time and make bigger sounds than a single room fan.
posted by kapers at 1:53 PM on December 23 [1 favorite]

Are you in a part of the world where you have turbine vents on the roof? They can sound like that if they are rusty or damaged.
posted by CathyG at 7:35 AM on December 24