Welcome to Brainstuff production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff Lauren vogelbam here. In many houses, creaking floors may be part of the home's charm or a source of annoyance for the residents, but in some seventeenth century Japanese residences, creaking floors were installed intentionally in hopes of making it
more difficult for intruders to sneak in on herd. These floors are called uguisubari or nightingale floors, and they use clever construction to generate a distinct chirping sound whenever anyone sets foot on the boards. The floors ultimately served as a sort of alarm system in some famous Japanese homes, and seem rather at odds with the otherwise elegant artistry
that surrounds the occupants. In Kyoto, for instance, visitors can try their best to slide silently across the floors in Nijo Castle and in Toji in Temple, but they may find that it's nearly impossible because the floor's design actually makes a louder sound as steps become lighter, singing like
the winged nightingales for which they're named. The floors are built much like any other, with wooden planks laid one by one along a common joist, but instead of nailing those planks firmly to the joist, the planks are left just a little bit loose so that they can move up and down a fraction of an inch as footsteps apply and release pressure. A metal clamp is affixed to the bottom of each plank, oriented so that when the plank moves, it rubs the clamp against a nail, creating
the distinctive squeaking sound. The first nightingale floors probably weren't purposefully made to squeak. They were probably just a result of the homes natural settling and aging. But as people realized the value of audible alerts, they began building floors to make the sounds intentionally. It's a quirky feature that may have saved a few fortunes and lives throughout Japanese history.
Installing the clamps was pricey and far more complicated than a typical, mostly silent wooden floor, so only royalty and the truly wealthy, or perhaps truly paranoid, could afford to have squeaky floors built in their homes. No one wanted to be mistaken for a potential assassin or robber. So in royal palaces, armed guards would walk in specific rhythms that would indicate to others that they belonged there and
weren't a potential danger to the inhabitants. Intruders, on the other hand, were left guessing as to a floor's construction because from the top, Nightingale floors look the same as any other. Today's episode was written by Nathan Chandler and produced by Tyler Clang. For more on this and lots of other topics, visit how Stuff works dot com. Brain
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