Cupboards and drawers in Crystal Oswald's house shake. Vibrations wake Donna Wiersgalla's 3-year-old daughter three or four times a night. A few doors down, Bailey Conklin, 13, removed rattling pictures from her bedroom wall.

That's life these days on 1st Avenue N. in Newport, where a phenomenon that nobody can explain troubles residents enough that they're seeking help from city officials and comparing notes in one another's kitchens.

At least eight households have reported intermittent and random shaking, and thus far public officials have been unable to find a cause.

"It wouldn't be so bad if someone could give me some answers," said Oswald, whose roommate has threatened to move out because of the shaking. "It's becoming a big pain, especially at night. It feels like there's a helicopter going over your house and I open the door and there's nothing."

The affected residents live next to a park in the northwest corner of Newport, a Washington County city of about 3,700 near the Mississippi River. Industries and highways surround the neighborhood, but it's unclear whether any of them -- including the nearby Wakota Bridge on Interstate 494 -- have anything to do with the mysterious vibrations that are beginning to feel like a slow form of torture to residents.

"I've never felt this before," said Wiersgalla, who has lived in the same house all of her 37 years. "I think we all thought it was kind of crazy, so we didn't say anything for a while."

100 trains not to blame

Neighbors discount freight trains as the culprits, even though they rumble past the neighborhood more than 100 times a day, as they've done for years. They can't think of any industry that's new or different except the bridge, but the Minnesota Department of Transportation said that nobody works on the construction in the evenings or overnight.