House Creaking? Is it because is haunted?

I am sure sometimes you sit alone in the house at night and suddenly you hear creaking or "settling" sound. Your heart jump a little and you start to have goosebump. Worse if you just watched a horror movie and trying to sleep at night. I'm sure you will be covering your head with blanket when you heard those sound.

Don't worry, is absolutely normal to hear creaking sound inside your house and your house is not haunted, unless you hear someone talking to you when no one is at home, then I think you really should be scared.

The infrastructures of house consists of elements like pillars, beams, and foundation, words that connote steadiness, permanence and immutability.

You would not have believed it, but your building is moving sometimes. There are many ways in which a building move.

A building, even a seemingly solid and massive one is never at rest. Its motions are usually very small and undetected by the unaided eyes. However, most of them are of virtually irresistable force and would tear the building to pieces if not provided for in some way.

In an average house, the following components can move:

1) The soil underneath the foundation buckles under the weight of a new foundation.

2) Materials that are put in place while wet, such as mortar, concrete, and lime plaster, shrink as they harden.

3) Some dry materials such as gypsum plaster, tend to expand and push against adjoining elements.

4) Most lumbers used in house is not completely dry when put in place. Wet lumber shrinks.

5) Structural elements that carry weight loads, such as beams, pillars, and columns, deflect under the weight.

6) Wind and earthquake cause more natural deflection.

7) Wood and concrete sag.

8) Wood in particular tend to expand when exposed to high humidity and contract in dry conditions. When humidity decreases noticeably, such as when heat is put on to warm a room in winter, the wood creaks noticeably.

9) Any material adjoining another material with different movement characteristic is in danger of scrapping against another or moving away from the other, which can cause movement and noise.

10) All of the above may cause noises, but the most common noise associated with settling is the actual expansion and contraction of the building.

Back-and-forth movement caused by thermal and moisture effect occur consistently. A building grows measurably larger in warm weather and smaller in cold weather.

A roof, heated by the sun, grows larger in the middle of the day, while the cooler walls below stay the same size. At night the roof cool and shrinks.

There are architects planning to compensate for the inevitable movement in materials, otherwise the creaking noises might lead you to the same fate as Janet Leigh's in Psycho.

This article is obtained from Joanne Walker of Ashland, Massachutes and also Dr Emil S Dickstein, Ohio from the book Imponderables.

However, I have heard from a friend of friend that the family rented a house in Sunway and during the night time they can hear people playing mahjong in the living hall when they are sleeping or people running up and down the stairs. It became so spooky that the family no longer dare to stay there and moved out.

How about you? Have you experienced those 'creaking' sound in the house at night? How do you feel? Does it scare you?

You are not alone in the house! @.@