this is a message my sister sent me, and i told her i would ask here... any thoughts we would appreciate it. for the record, her house is fairly old in an older neighborhood if that means anything to anyone.

okay so here is the whole deal. For the last couple of years, I had had issues with my computer battery backup surging, which has scared me. All of a sudden it'll buzz like the electricity is out, but only for like 5 seconds at a time so that could be totally unrelated, but when I had my computer in the other room years ago, it would do it. So I had the electrician come over to check the outlets where I have it now to make sure everything was on the up and up. It was fine so I put it where it is now, but then it does the surging thing still. not all the time, but probably at least once or twice a day. This could be totally unrelated though. Anyway, on superbowl sunday, the lights started flickering as if Joe was outside welding. That's the only other time we have ever seen the lights do it is when he is welding. However, since then, it has been pretty consistent, but like I said we can go DAYS without noticing it, but then all of a sudden it will do it. It is just the lights but the lights in every room AND out in the garage. My battery backup doesn't surge when it is doing it and the TV is fine, alarm clocks, and microwave clock are fine, just the lights. So I called the power company right off the bat. He came over to check the box here, looked at the pole apparently, checked the poles at the end of the street, checked with neighbors, and nothing. So he told me to call an electrician. I called the electrician and he checked the breaker box, checked the box outside, and came back on a separate day to look at things, but nothing. He said it was probably the power company's deal and that he would call them to have them come take a look once the snow melted and they could get back to the pole. He said that we are at the end of the line so if there was any power surges from the pole, we would get the brunt of it for whatever reason. Anyway, that's the deal and earlier today of course it was doing it again.