Mr Sleepless and Mrs Migraine from Glen Marais write:
My wife and I would like to add to Sleepless from Edleen’s letter (“Strange, persistent noise in Edleen”, Kempton Express July 11).
We are from Glen Marais and have for the past couple of years experienced this same monotone, subsonic growling noise at night.
Sometimes it is almost not audible and more a disturbance/vibration inside one’s head. Sometimes it is so bad that we suffer from sleep deprivation.
Also read:
• Who else is hearing this strange noise in Edleen?
The nights that the sound is there, my wife gets up with a migraine and I can’t sleep and can’t focus at work, leading to tension, back spasm and stress.
The first time I thought it was a plane engine, but eventually I thought it was the nearby quarry as it felt as if the sound was coming from the ground and up the walls.
I monitored when the sounds appeared, when it was loud and when soft and defined a pattern. It came about mostly during winter and when the wind direction was in a certain direction. This made me think of the industrial areas around us.
One night when we got into bed at 9pm it was so loud that I got into my car and started tracking the sound. From my house it came from a western direction, so I headed across the railway line to Birchleigh.
I went a bit north to try and eliminate sound bouncing and the sound perhaps coming from up north, as our area of Glen Marais is lower than Birchleigh. The sound then came from WSW.
I drove, stopped in quiet streets and listened. Eventually ended up in Chloorkop. By this time, it was less of a subsonic growling noise, but a higher frequency factory noise.
To triangulate the origin, I drove around Chloorkop to Klipfontein, as I know there are some industrial developments. While stopped in a quiet street, the sound came from the south-east (Chloorkop industrial). I went into Chloor Road and stopped on the corner of Chloor Road and Hytor Street. The sound was now very loud and coming from the SSE.
I wanted to make sure I triangulate accurately and drove around the factories on Norwalk Road and Zuurfontein Road to see if perhaps the sound emanated from Modderfontein. When I stopped to listen, the sound came from behind, back to Chloorkop from a then NNE direction.
I proceeded back. The sound, now very load again, was coming from the north.
I tracked back, slowly driving with an open window and eventually ended up where Ossewa and Norwalk roads met just off Zuurfontein Road. The sound was now very loud from a then western direction, as loud as when I was on the other side of this plant, corner of Chloor Road and Hytor Street.
I arrived back home just past midnight with origin, but no plan of action.
My verdict is there are some machinery or a combination of machinery in this factory that makes tremendous noise. And in winter times, when its cold, the noise catches a thermal layer and carries far. By the time it arrives with us, it is a long wave low frequencies that penetrate anything. That confirms our and Sleepless in Edleen’s subsonic monotone growling experience.
I have not made work of it yet, but hope that some larger power or authority can assist the residents in the greater area to find some sleep.
