Lawnmower And Hammering

Not sure if this really qualifies as a ghost encounter, but it's certainly odd.

In around 2008 I began noticing the sound of a distant lawnmower in the middle of the night. It sounded way off in the distance. But because it's quiet in the middle of the night I could hear all the sounds you'd associate with cutting grass. The crunch of going over a stick, various sounds of the motor as it pushes through long tufts, all those lawnmower type sounds. Every so often, I'd hear this nocturnal mower. I found this amusing, thinking 'sucks to be their neighbour.'

I mentioned this to a few friends. For a lark I made up stories about some deranged guy with body parts in his garden shed. 'Hey, do you remember that film Lawnmower Man? Well, there's some wacko around here who mows the grass in the middle of the night.' You can imagine the sorts of stupid jokes which followed.

About a year later, Christmas time at Mum's, I heard another distant lawnmower in the middle of the night. I didn't think much of it, just 'Huh what'd ya know, another late night grass cutter.'

This has been going on for absolute years. Every now and then, in the middle of the night, someone, a block or two away, mows their grass.

Few months back, around August, I heard the late night mower again. For the first time, since this has been happening, I questioned it. What got me was the direction. No matter where I hear this, it's always the same distance away. I then started thinking if cutting grass in the middle of the night is really something some people do, surely you'd come across it late at night driving to or from wherever. But I've never come across anyone mowing their grass in the middle of the night, nor have I ever heard anyone complain about a neighbour doing so. This time I listened hard, maybe I'm hearing a truck or even the fridge. Nope, it's a lawnmower alright.

Then my thoughts turned serious, along the lines of schizophrenia. Nearing ten years of accepted nocturnal lawnmower compressed into five minutes of bombarding realisation makes you a bit tetchy. I was going from one end of the house to the other trying to get a direction on this sound, before I went to my husband with it. Couldn't get a direction. We were going to bed, he was upstairs while I was trotting around downstairs. He could tell something was amiss by my running around. I went up and said "Okay, can you hear a lawnmower?" he looked at me in the way he does when something's bloody serious and said "I can hear hammering."

Big long discussion that night. He could hear distant hammering. I could not hear any hammering whatsoever and he couldn't hear any lawnmower. But he's been hearing hammering on and off for a long time, he thinks much longer than my 2008-ish lawnmower. Like me, he hears this when it's very quiet, like night time. We've discussed hearing this during the day, but it's the kind of volume you wouldn't notice over daytime traffic or even birds, it would blend in. I've heard distant lawn mowing many times during the day, but whether every one is a physical occurrence I've no idea now. We've also discussed the possibility we've been hearing these sounds at the same time, without knowing it. Like that night.

No hammering or lawnmower since that night in August. Husband joked now we've clocked these as phantom sounds we'll probably never hear them again. That'd suck.

So what the heck is going on here? Neither of us have any affiliation with lawnmowers or hammering, no more than the next person at least. We don't have any desire to do any renovating or repairing or fancy lawn maintenance. These sounds don't resonate with us at all. We both love gardening and nature but hearing hammering and a lawnmower is a bit extreme.

We keep waiting for one of us to hear this again. I tried to force hearing the lawnmower one night, didn't work. Over the years it only occurs maybe twice a year at most, and this is about the same for his hammering.

If only we'd known about this ages ago, drats.

Thanks for reading.