What the heck is wrong with the pipes in my flat?

I moved into the ground-floor flat of an Altbau at the beginning of March and haven't experienced any problems with the flat until now. I began hearing an odd buzzing noise coming from the heating pipes in the bedroom, a noise that stopped and started at random throughout the day and grew increasingly louder each time. At first I thought the family above me was running an extremely loud washing machine or had something resting against the pipes, but after listening to the actual pipes, it sounds like the noise is actually resonating from inside the pipes. At this point, I am totally clueless...

Has anyone experienced similar problems in an Altbau or for that matter, in any flat? Are there any plumbers out there that may have heard of a similar occurrence? The damn noise is starting to get really annoying, as it happened three times last night and kept waking me up.

they might have air in them so let the air out and the noise MIGHT disappear.

It could be water or air in the pipes and this is an easy fix. The hausmeister should be able to drain this for you. I live in a flat built in the late 1800s and there's always some unusual noise coming from somewhere in the heating system or the creaky floors.

Almost certainly one or the other. With or without the problem.

Sounds like the system needs bleeding of air. Contact your Landlord.

my bidet speaks to me, its burps and gurgles most of the time... I don't really notice it, but recently my brother was here and he noticed it. I spoke to my landlords and the hausmeister, and they say there is nothing they can do, unless we replace ALL the pipes in the building.

In the first flat I had when I moved here (I assume it was) the ventilation system resonated when the wind blew from a certain direction. Like living inside a church organ...

Well, contact your Landlord if you want to give him a good laugh. Bleeding a system of air is simple enough, that you can do it yourself (in fact, something you should be doing once a year anyway).

thanks for all of the helpful responses!

my boyfriend looked at the pipes/radiator, but the system is really old and he can't actually find the correct valve to open. i think that means the hausmeister will be getting a call tomorrow morning... hopefully, he doesn't tell me the same thing carm was told!