Listen - Mum’s nursery rhyme nightmares solved by late-night crack team

For the last year, one resident of Ipswich has heard the same haunting sound in the night - a nursery rhyme being played from an unknown source somewhere near their house. Picture: ARCHANT Archant

A tormented mother living in Bramford Road with her two young children has been woken on an almost nightly basis by a tinny, distant rendition of ‘It’s Raining, It’s Pouring’.

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She said the threatening undertone of the song had left her frightened and questioning whether she was imagining things.

After months of torment, she finally reported the unusual complaint to Ipswich Borough Council.

“I started to ask myself why I was living with this when I could do something about it,” she said.

Early this morning the mum was once again awoken by the music and quickly called the council’s rapid response team, reporting that the sound was coming from the direction of Europa Way.

The Bramford Road resident thinks the sound is coming from the direction of Europa Way, potentially from the industrial estate rear the railway. Picture: ARCHANT The Bramford Road resident thinks the sound is coming from the direction of Europa Way, potentially from the industrial estate rear the railway. Picture: ARCHANT

The team sprang into action. They joined the woman at the scene and went out to investigate this ongoing mystery.

They tracked the eerie music down to an industrial premises on the neighbouring Farthing Road estate where the music was playing through a loud speaker.

A spokesman for the council said: “This is unique in our experience – it was difficult to believe a nursery rhyme would be playing in the middle of the night.

“But we do take all complaints extremely seriously and asked the residents who contacted us to let us know when it was actually playing so we could investigate properly.

“We took a call around midnight and immediately went to the Bramford Road area to find out more - we did hear the nursery rhyme playing from an industrial premises and it sounded very eerie at that time of night. We appreciate that people living nearby would find it quite spooky.”

The music was actually designed to act as a deterrent to trespassers and was activated by motion sensors.

A spokesman from the site said: “The sound is only supposed to act as a deterrent for opportunistic thieves that come onto our property, and it’s designed only to be heard by people on our private land.

“We are now aware of the problem - the motion sensors were being triggered by spiders crawling across the lenses of our cameras and it looks like we’ve had it turned up too loudly.

“We’ve spoken to the resident who brought it to our attention and adjusted it so this shouldn’t happen again.”

The relieved mum said: “They have agreed to call me and run a volume test to make sure it won’t be disturbing me any more.

“It’s a massive relief and I’m looking forward to getting some actual sleep from now on.”

She added: “It was waking me up in the night, it was absolutely terrifying. I heard it at all times of the night - 1am, 2am, 4am - it was sporadic, sometimes it would play once, other times it was over and over.

“Last week it played for hours, it was just horrible.”

The council spokesman added: “Our environmental health team does respond very quickly whenever we can – we do have an out-of-hours service – and we urge people to get in touch if they are troubled by any noise nuisance. It is usually loud music or shouting from neighbours; this is the first time any of the team can recall a nursery rhyme playing in the middle of the night.”

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“It’s raining, it’s pouring,

The old man is snoring,

He went to bed and bumped his head

And couldn’t get up in the morning.”