It's been all over Facebook and several TV stations, especially those up north. People are calling in or posting about the strange booms, thuds or explosions they have been hearing at night. One clip that I watched had a professional contractor explaining that is was merely expansion and contraction of a persons' house. When it's cold, they contract, when its warm, they expand. Most of us learned this in grade school.
I'm not going to argue with the professional, but unless there has been a new game added to the Olympics, synchronized house contraction/expansion, I beg to differ.
I've heard this weird noise about four times now and most always it's at night, usually when I'm in bed. Up until last night, I've heard it in the wee hours of the morning when most females of the human species bodies think they need to be awake. I don't know why that is, why can't we be wide awake at three in the afternoon, not three in the morning. My aunt used to talk about this when I was a small kid, she would get up and knit. I don't like to knit so I just stay in bed because I know I'll be sleeping like the dead when it is time to rise. Anyway, back to the booms.
Last night, shortly after we had retired of the oh so tired Super Bowl game, it happened. THUD! I've lived in this house nearly all my days and until recently I've never heard it do this. My husband even asked, "What the hell was that?"
I told him I wasn't sure, but I had heard it a week or so ago, during one of the ever so popular polar vortexes. It's a strange sound, and it even has a "feel" to it. Kind of like standing in front of a huge speaker at a concert, the sound seems to go right through the body. It wasn't but about ten minutes later and it did it again. His response that time was, "I have no idea what that is.....zzzzzzzzz. How is it that men can fall asleep like that? Sometimes I'll just be talking away and suddenly wonder why he's not answering, then I get the zzzzzzzzz and that mystery is solved.
Not only did our house have the noise, but several others on our street did too.....all at the same time. That convinced me that it was something other than the usual contraction/expansion.
After doing a bit of research, plus reading the many posts online for the explanation, I think I have to agree with the term cryoseism, or frost quake. Cryoseism is an awesome word, even my spell checker doesn't know what it is, but frost quake is a bit more user friendly. It seems that the cause of the booms is from the frozen ground water needing to expand. Since the ground is really hard because its been colder than freaking Alaska here, and that's the truth, the frozen water has no choice but to split the soil, aka earth, in order for it to get some more room. Must have something to do with global warming.
This old house heaves and settles every year. During the winter there are some doors that will barely latch and others that will swing freely when they normally would not. Just the other evening when my husband emerged from the bathroom, ready for bed, he couldn't get the bathroom door to shut. He pushed and pushed and finally, with a lot of effort, he got it to latch. I'm watching this scenario from the comfort of my propped up pillow and I'm thinking that is really odd, that door has never had a problem with shutting. A couple of hours later, when I was wide awake, I got up and shuffled to the bathroom. I had to push on the door to get it to open since it had been wedged shut. It made its own popping sound when it opened and I stopped for a moment, listening for the zzzzz.......yes, still there, I was safe. As I entered, before shutting the door behind me, I turned on the small nightlight because I wanted to know the reason for this suddenly stubborn door......and there it was, just as I figured.
There is a bench inside the bathroom that sits right next to the door. My husband always places his clothes for the next day on this bench. That way, they are nice and toasty when he puts them on. The sleeve of his shirt was stuck in the hinge side of the door therefore not allowing the door to close properly.
Man eyes and frost quakes, ain't winter fun.
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