Hi. I live at an apartment complex. For some time now I have been hearing a noise that sounds like a knob being turned on and off which is coming from another tenant's apartment. It wakes me up at night and in the early morning hours when I am trying to sleep. When I recorded the sound while in my bathroom, it sounded like a very loud clicking sound.

The manager told me that the maintenance checked a couple of apartments, top floor and bottom, that are near me but when they turned the kitchen sink knobs, bathroom sink knobs, and bathtub knobs, they couldn't hear anything.

What could be causing this and is there any other way to find the source of this noise so that it can be corrected?

Thank you.

A toilet fill valve can cause that kind of noise, when it's barely open. Maybe a toilet flapper is leaking and the water level in the tank slowly drops down to point that the fill valve barely opens?

Thank you for your answer. I will contact my manager and give her this information.

Unfortunately, the manager still says that she can't find the source of the noise. It sounds like it is directly below me or to the side of me, but I can't tell for sure.

How far can a squeaky noise like this travel at an apartment complex?

Can management(or anyone else) hear the noise? A bad fill valve(if it has a float) and angle stop can be checked by taking off the tank lid and lightly pushing down the float, so the fill valve just barely opens. I would think it would be from an adjoining apartment.

It could be the expansion and contraction of various pipes in the wall.
Not much can be done now about this now unfortunately.

Part of apartment living is having to listen to noise from other units. It's a huge bummer and what gave me drive to work hard to get out of that situation and become a homeowner.

I continue to hear the noise, but now it seems to have migrated to my apartment. Many times when I turn off the knob on the hot water side after taking a shower, I can hear the noise. It seems more like a squealing noise. When I only heard the noise coming from another tenant's unit, I thought that it was a knob. Now I think it might have something to do with the hot water.

Could this be the pipes at the complex? If so, what could the long-term consequences be? I have been hearing this aggravating sound since mid-May even though the manager couldn't find the noise.

(Nobody else has complained about the noise, but that is not surprising. This is the type of complex where noise is heard but never reported by tenants. I did record this noise, so I know that it is real.)

Thank you.

As far as how far and long can noise travel in pipes?

A very long way especially in water pipes being transported in copper pipes.

Unless we are there to hear it we really can't guess much more other than it might be a check valve or maybe water hammer or so many other variables. I'm sorry that we can't help more than this.



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