Flickering light, what could be the cause?

I have a hallway light with 2 light switches, one downstairs one upstairs. When the light is on it flickers. The bulbs are incandescent and there are 2 fixtures on the circuit, both flicker at the same time. I have tried replacing the bulbs and the switches but the lights still flicker. When changing the light switches i put a meter on the different leads to make sure there was no power because the voltage detecting device still beeping after i turned the breaker off. The 2 wires that travel between the switches had 10volts on them. I had them disconnected upstairs and downstairs so should be open, I am guessing this is the cause of the flicker but can not figure out how the voltage is getting on the lines. The box at the bottom of the stairs has 3 switches, each switch is on a different circuit. I tried turning off all 3 circuits and the travelers still registered voltage.Flickering light, what could be the cause?Not a short but probably a loose wire or faulty switch, a short will blow the fuse.The voltage you are reading is likely to be spurious voltages, I assume you are using a digital multimeter, this is a downfall with them in that they are very high impedance and can pick up these voltages. If you have a low impedance switch on the multimeter use that and the voltages will disappear.Flickering light, what could be the cause?sounds like you have a short somewhere in the wiring find what else is on those lines and check them out