Either Paranormal or Something Worse....

Originally posted by ZeroUnlmtd

expansion and contraction make perfect sense, too much sense to look into it further. the snaps are coming from the part of the frame that has the most moisture in the wood most likely, next to a wall where rain water will seep in from time to time, not enough to cause flooding or anything like that but where moisture gets in the wood, when the heat is on the moisture condensates in the wood causing the loud snaps because the wood is expanding faster than normal. debunked bro

I see. Well, thank you very much for your effort in establishing the only possible cause for these (what seemed like) confounding indications. I guess the wood dried out - finally - yesterday, and the snaps won't be back ever again. Whew. Thanks bro.

That maintenance contractor that works for the condo association should read up on this stuff. Hell, he couldn't figure it out for the life of him. What an idiot. Just simple "Occam's razor" stuff. Water and radical heat expansion/contraction activity in that one small area of that one section of fire wall.

Gosh, I feel so silly for bringing it up.

Just went upstairs to make sure my wife wasn't going to sleep her New Years Eve away. Walked into the room, where she was doing some light reading in bed, and as soon as I sat down on the edge, we were greeted with three loud snaps (1/2 second intervals), two isolated snaps (about 10 seconds apart), and three more loud snaps at the 1/2 second interval of the first burst.

Without looking up from her book, my wife says, "Looks like your friend's back."

"Were they happening before I walked in just now?"

"Nope," she said, "just started back up. They sound happy."

I laughed. "Yeah, well I posted online this morning that they seemed to have Rhonda's personality. And that maybe they'd stopped over the last day or so to prove a point. Maybe they're laughing at me?"

My wife smiled, and lifted one eyebrow as the wall gave a really loud snap. No comment necessary.

I swear to Christ that this just happened 5 minutes ago.

You have other paranormal stuff going on so I guess it isn't unreasonable to think your friend is keeping in touch. I am sorry for your loss, btw. She sounded like the kind of friend we all would like to have.

But the fact lights go off and on and there seems to be a cause and effect relation to the switch to the heater having to be on would make me hire an electrician, if I could afford such a thing in my own life, lol, to check the wiring and make sure nothing is amiss with that. On HGTV there are a couple of Canadian shows by the same expert contractor, Holmes Inspection and Holmes on Homes that are a real eye opener about how wiring can end up in places it wasn't meant to be with results nobody would want to live with. Even brand new construction sometimes ends up with bad wiring and ductwork that wasn't in the original plans, due to subcontractors screwing around or screwing up. How it gets past inspectors, I'll never know. The wiring nightmares those two shows expose are absolutely jaw dropping when you consider sometimes there were only subtle clues something was amiss. Electricians are horribly expensive so I can understand if you would prefer to consider other possibilities first.

There MAY be the possibility it is a combination of normal and paranormal at work. Maybe your friend is looking out for your safety and trying to draw your attention the only way she can to problems she knows about. I've certainly read other accounts of deceased loved ones attempting to warn people of dangers they knew of, so it is a possibility.

I wish you the best of luck getting to the bottom of this. By your description your home sounds very nice aside from the knocking noise. I hope you get a satisfactory resolution soon to put your mind at ease. I wish you and your wife a Happy New Year, as well. And I give my respects to Rhonda, too, wherever she is and whatever she is doing.

reply to post by SheeplFlavoredAgain


Thank you. That was a very helpful and generous post. Very nice. I hope you have a great new year.

if you think it might be a spirit that you know, try setting down with a digital recorder some night and instead of leaving the room, try an evp session. ask questions, wait for about 30 seconds, ask some more quests, wait and so on. If indeed it seems to only be happening when your in the room, it may indeed be trying to communicate. Since you think it may be a friend of yours, i would start the questions out as simple generic questions for a the first 3 or so, then start asking questions directed towards Rhonda. If you find your getting results only when you ask questions directed at Rhonda, then you have more to go on. Once you get the digital recorder's sound files onto your computer, i would sugest downloading a program called Audacity. It will help you to isolate the parts you think you might hear something. Its freeware so it only costs you the time to download it. Theres a lot of options on the program you'll never have to use but i sugest playing around on it a bit to just get use to it and learn how to zoom in on the sound waves, that way you will be able to see what your hearing. Oh and headphones, use headphones lol.

Originally posted by SheeplFlavoredAgain
You have other paranormal stuff going on so I guess it isn't unreasonable to think your friend is keeping in touch. I am sorry for your loss, btw. She sounded like the kind of friend we all would like to have.

But the fact lights go off and on and there seems to be a cause and effect relation to the switch to the heater having to be on would make me hire an electrician, if I could afford such a thing in my own life, lol, to check the wiring and make sure nothing is amiss with that. On HGTV there are a couple of Canadian shows by the same expert contractor, Holmes Inspection and Holmes on Homes that are a real eye opener about how wiring can end up in places it wasn't meant to be with results nobody would want to live with. Even brand new construction sometimes ends up with bad wiring and ductwork that wasn't in the original plans, due to subcontractors screwing around or screwing up. How it gets past inspectors, I'll never know. The wiring nightmares those two shows expose are absolutely jaw dropping when you consider sometimes there were only subtle clues something was amiss. Electricians are horribly expensive so I can understand if you would prefer to consider other possibilities first.



There MAY be the possibility it is a combination of normal and paranormal at work. Maybe your friend is looking out for your safety and trying to draw your attention the only way she can to problems she knows about. I've certainly read other accounts of deceased loved ones attempting to warn people of dangers they knew of, so it is a possibility.

I wish you the best of luck getting to the bottom of this. By your description your home sounds very nice aside from the knocking noise. I hope you get a satisfactory resolution soon to put your mind at ease. I wish you and your wife a Happy New Year, as well. A I give my respects to Rhonda, too, wherever she is and whatever she is doing.

Yes, this is a very plausible suggestion. Don't just assume it's some "paranormal event" just because you haven't yet discovered a logical, physical, explanation. That would be yielding to "magical thinking".

reply to post by roaland


Good stuff. I'll take a look for that program. I could use an audio mircoeditor anyway. Well...another audio mircoeditor. I have way too many programs loaded on my computers. It can be like an addiction I think.

reply to post by NorEaster


also handy for making your own sound clips, which can easily be turned into ring tones hehe

reply to post by NorEaster


Well, my living arrangements are semi complicated and I am usually sleeping under at least two different roofs every week. Mostly I stay in a 20 year old apartment complex on the second floor in between two other units, usually I only hear them when going to bed so perhaps it has something to do with the cooling of the building. The other house I often stay at is closer to 50-60 years old with a basement foundation and I usually hear the snaps everywhere and very often.

Now the change in the "snaps" could easily be due to the age and difference in the buildings but Sometimes in the older house I will hear no snaps for a period of up to 4 hours or more and on rare occasions I will hear very rapid snaps in the newer apartment building. It's enough to keep me wondering .

As for the idea of moisture drying the cracks usually happen on the inside walls of the house, so unless there's leaky pipes i'm not sure on that one. The distance between the two houses is also very close so I'm not sure change in temperature/precipitation is the direct cause of our situation, but then again I don't know much about this topic.

There is no one I can recall that has died close to me in any recent time and there's no other significant occurrence that could be in any crazy way behind this. Then again I am still dazzled from new years so i'll get back to you on that one

p.s I don't remember hahahaha