Sue, my neighbour came running over to me. “I can’t stand this noise” she said. When I stopped to listen I agreed. There was a dull loud hum in the air when I stepped outside. It was even worse in her house and I was determined to get to the bottom of this.
I phoned Owen, our local councillor who gave me the environmental health officer and he rang them himself. Meanwhile I took Sue down to the new building estate on the Genesis project land.
I was looking for a pile driver as this seemed to be the cause of the noise. Of course there was nothing when we arrived. I asked a driver of a big lorry and he didn’t know what was a pile driver so this didn’t help!
When we got home, the environmental officer arrived and of course there was no noise….nothing to hear anymore. However, the officer was very good and said he would visit the site for himself.
On return he told us that he hadn’t found anything either but to keep in touch as soon as we heard anything again.
I mentioned it to my other neighbour, and he wondered if it may have been his hot tub, out in the garden as it could make a humming sound when the tub was in action.
No, it wasn’t this either!
Later that night…at 12.45am I couldn’t sleep because of the noise. I worried that it may be in my house and so turned off the central heating.. still the humming continued. I rang my neighbours as I felt that something could happen if I didn’t act on it.
My neighbour across the road came straight over in her dressing gown and Sue arrived fully clothed. No, they couldn’t hear anything in the porch, or the living room or the kitchen. I took them upstairs and I could hear it in the bedroom…but they couldn’t! Was I going mad…was it just me?
I wasn’t too well with a virus which was making me feel low and very tired. I decided to take a visit to the doctor……when I mentioned the sound I was hearing…he had the answer! I had tinnitus and this is what created the humming in my head! I was offered further investigation but I knew this was something I just had to live with now….I found that if I moved my head from one side to the other, the sound would cease!!!
My comment to the doctor was….”I know you’ll think I’m neurotic and when I leave this room I bet you’ll have a great time putting this down on the computer”!!!! Needless to say he just smiled and assured me it was OK.
