Still Haunted By The Ticking, Still Yearning For The Silence

The electrostatic cells are still tick-tick-ticking.  I was woken up yesterday/Friday morning with it (before falling asleep), and then I heard it this/Saturday morning, and this time it kept me up.  I went through and wiped all the ... um, ionizing wires and plates (?) as fastidiously as I could one one of the plates.  And the clicking I heard the past two mornings appears to sound different than it/they did when I first heard them -- it wasn't as loud, but it have been more frequent.  Maybe it worked, and now I have to wipe/clean the other cell.  Or, maybe I'm just deluding myself.

I told my parents about this.  They said that after cleaning the sound doesn't stop, call my uncle over.  I love him and I would love the help and I would love the help to be free, but I have no idea how my uncle would be able to fix this.  I am close to calling in a person -- not only am I bothered by that sound, but whenever the furnace stops, I heard a dripping reverberating through the ductwork, and I wonder if that means there's a leak or something -- but I'm scared that he'll come over, check things out, do something real quick, say something to the effect of, "Yeah, the dripping sound you hear is normal," then charge me $200.

Rather than get screwed, I'd sooner live with the sounds.  I no longer am afraid that the snapping noise from the cells is an indication that there's a gas leak or the pilot light's about to go out.  (I actually was able to locate the pilot light; it's there and it seems fine.)  And the dripping has been going on for years; I'm only freaked out about it now because no one lives here now.  But like the clicking that goes away once the temperature reaches the setting on the thermostat, the dripping sound goes away ... uh, a while after the heat shuts off, too.  The silence so relieves me of my anxiety that I actually seek it.  I am turning down the temperature on the thermostat so I don't have to hear either sound.  I think I crave it so much that I will risk freezing the house to keep the silence.

So maybe I should try washing the other cell to see if I can eliminate that noise, then take the dripping noise under advisement.