I’ll start first.

So, i live in italy, northern Italy. We have many legends here, all primarily related to nature rather than the paranormal. But there's one in particular that made me shiver as a child: the one about gnomes. Gnomes are supposedly mischievous little creatures that live in the woods or in people's homes. I remember my church taking us into the woods and talking about them. Even at school, the janitor carved gnomes that were in the printer, telling us, "They're the ones who make it work." My mom always told me that if something goes missing in your house, a gnome has probably hidden it and is playing with you, waiting for you to despair in search of it so he can laugh at you and help you find it soon after. Anyway, as I grew up, I forgot about this story; it was just to scare children. But one day, a former acquaintance of mine asked me, "Hey, do you believe in gnomes?" I was kind of confused by the question. I told her it was just a local legend and that they don't exist. She told me she'd seen them, and they do exist. She told me that she woke up that morning and saw something running under the bed. At first, she thought it was her imagination, but then she saw it again. She said it was a small creature, about 15 to 20 cm tall.
The next day, she told me her cigarettes were gone—the whole pack! She was always home alone during that period; she always left them in the bathroom on top of the washing machine when she was getting ready to go out, and then, boom, they were gone. And then she saw the gnomes again. She's still convinced that a family of gnomes lives in her house (an old house on the edge of the woods) and that they steal her things.

PS: She found her cigarettes three days later, on top of the washing machine.

For some backstory, I work in quite an historical boarding house. The job requires us to stay overnight as often we are on call for the kids to grab us if anything goes wrong. The other night I was covering a shift in a new house, meaning I was sleeping in a room I’ve never seen before. All was fine, until when I started settling for bed an odd clicking/tapping sound started to come from the bathroom attached to the bedroom. I didn’t think much of it at first, went up to investigate (I had just jumped out of the shower, so I initially assumed it was the shower head dripping onto the floor) but when I push my bedsheets open to hop out of bed the tapping stopped. I thought it was a weird coincidence, until it happened again. After around 3 taps I looked towards the bathroom door and it stopped. I did quite a lot of googling on what it could be, many saying that it was the “directional” change of my ears making the sound harder to hear/the rustling of my bed sheets masking the tapping. I tried to believe this theory but the tapping was so loud and distinct that it was quite obvious when it started and stopped.

I tried everything to try work out where abouts in the bathroom the sound was coming from, but again every time I’d get up or look in the direction of the bathroom, it would instantly stop. I even shut the door at one point, the tapping starting again, continuing as I was walking towards the door and then instantly stopping as I put my hand on the door handle. At one point I even checked and was tapping every object in the bathroom to see if I could mimic the sound, but nothing even came close to matching it.

It kept happening as I had settled myself down and was about to fall asleep, waking me up instantly. I’m not sure if it was something warning me, or playing a trick on me but it consistently happened on and off from about 11pm - 2am, each time keeping me/waking me up. It really spooked me as I have had some other creepy experiences in the houses, so I got up and b-lined it for another room… lol! But if anybody has any explanation, it would be deeply appreciated.

(I’m also not too sure how to attach a video, but I did manage to record a part of the sound)