1) I have noticed that when I leave the metal parts of the guitar and the strings untouched, there is a significant noise when my distortion pedal is on. On touching the strings/tailpiece(I have a LP), the noise used to go away almost completely. I suspect this is a grounding problem on my guitar but any leads on this would help.
2) This is my main problem where I really need an answer. Recently, I have moved into another place. Since then,I have noticed that on touching the strings/tailpiece, the noise reduces to what is probably half. This means in my new house, for some reason there is also noise due to other than the grounding problem I have suspected. What I have found is when I play any note(even very low ones), the noise is completely removed and I can hear the note very well. But like I mentioned, I can hear some noise when all strings are muted/touched. The only thing I have changed in my new house is that I am not using one of those circular extension boxes. Please help! This is my signal chain: Gibson LP Signature T > JHS Angry Charlie > Egnater Tweaker 15 head and cab.