I turned off the bathroom fan tonight and an annoying buzzing began. The fan is relatively new, having been installed less than a year ago. I removed the bulbs to take a peak inside; there was an inch of dust all over the surface. After using a hand-held vacuum to suck out all the dust, I screwed on the bulbs and flipped the switch. No more buzzing! Awesome!

I washed my hands and flipped off the light. Took one step out of the bathroom and the buzzing began again. What the hell! I thought to myself, “Maybe if I just leave it alone, it will magically fix itself.”

No such luck.

Ten minutes later, the buzzing was still going strong. I searched for “buzzing noise from bathroom fan” on Google and the results were pretty bleak. However, I did find a forum for the show This Old House. I use to watch that show religiously on PBS when I was younger. They would always fix up these cool Victorian style houses and give a little background history of the area.

Anyhow, the search results said either the screws holding up the fan were loose or the fan was busted. Either situation sounded troublesome. While I was setting up the tools, I bumped into the sink and the buzzing stopped. Strange.

I kneed the sink cabinet and the buzzing started. Kneed it again and the buzzing stopped. Maybe something was wrong with the plumbing. The cabinet was a mess inside; I had to dig through a bunch of knick knacks to fiddle with the pipes. It seemed like I needed to clean the cabinet out before I could do anything further.

Thirty minutes later, I solved the buzzing noise problem.

A battery-powered toothbrush somehow powered on and was knocking against the wood surface of the cabinet.

What a waste of a night.