If some houses remain vacant (especially basements) for some time , then jinns may start living there.
Usually jinns start giving hints to people sometimes by dreams or showing themselves in extreme cases.muslim jinns usually just pray and feel happy if its a muslim human family living there too. but just like humans there are idiotic jinns also who wait for a chance for any human to unknowingly do something which may irritate them and then they start teasing in different ways.