Combating Harassing Use of Mosquito Noise Device?

amicold asks: "For a while now my neighborhood has had to deal with an elderly neighbor who has displayed a slightly paranoid attitude towards myself and the fellow younger-adults of the neighborhood, believing us to be attempting to harass him in our day-to-day activities. Recently, he installed a Mosquito ultrasonic noise device as an apparent attempt to 'get back at us' for our harassment. As the Mosquito emits a sound that's well out of his hearing range, he can't hear it, while most of the rest of the neighborhood is under 40 and can; at which point it's causing everyone a great deal of discomfort. Unfortunately, because the police also can't hear it, we can't get the authorities to do anything about it, leaving us empty-handed in our attempts at getting some peace and quiet back. What can we do to either help the police realize how disturbing this device is, or counteract it so that it's no longer disturbing us? And is this the first of what may be a growing trend of civilians using high-tech discomfort weapons as a method of neighborhood warfare?"

right back at them

Suggest http://www.eminent-tech.com/RWbrochure.htm [eminent-tech.com]

Well, you could start by...

You could start by getting off his damn lawn.

Ask Slashdot?

Instead of "Ask Slashdot", shouldn't this be under "Ask Your Lawyer"?

Simple

http://www.psywarrior.com/rockmusic.html [psywarrior.com]

Try this

Take pictures of it. Print out the link you have in your post and any other documentation you can find on the thing. Ask a community service officer from the police to come out. She will probably be a she. She will probably be young, and since not carrying a gun, will not have spent a bunch of time on the firing range ruining her hearing. She will hear it, and since the docs clearly show it is designed to be annoying, she will be on your side. Probably. Maybe. You can try it and hope, anyway.

Plan B. You like Hendrix, right? With breakfast. Early. Turn it up to eleven.

Re:Try this

There was a piece on NPR radio a few weeks ago about an inventor who is marketing a device similar to the mosquito one in this article only it is specifically desinged to be annoying to teenagers (he had problems with them congregating in front of his store). Amusingly his daughter then subverted it for her own use by creating ringtones of the noise so that she could turn her phone on during school (since vibra mode can still be audible in a quiet classroom) and none of the teachers can hear it even though everyone else can lol.

They even had the ringtone as a downloadable ringtone there (you can't of course hear it at all if you're over 25 or so, as you age you lose the ability to hear in those outlier frequency ranges).

Here's a link to the story:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?story Id=5434687 [npr.org]

Re:Try this

I guess other people really can't hear when the TV is left on.

I can. It's the flyback transformer in your set making that noise - a very loud 15.75 KHz tone. I'm almost 40 years old and haven't taken real good care of my hearing, and it still bugs the hell out of me. One solution to the noise problem is to get a non-CRT television set (plasma, LCD, DLP, etc.).

Re:Try this

Or at night, plan a raid, whereby you break the device in such a fashion that all the nice little leds stay on (take out the speaker or whatever makes the noise). This will require a screwdriver and you bringing it back to your place. The old man, never having heard the device doesn't know it is broken and is happy annoying you and you are happy as well. Everybody wins^_^

Observation

Not that I'm condoning any particular course of action, but I just though it worth pointing out that if he can't hear it himself, he can't tell if it's still functioning. Just an observation.

Re:Observation

if he can't hear it himself, he can't tell if it's still functioning.

Only if the poster stops complaining. So if the device has an accident with a pair of wire cutters in the middle of the night one should continue to act outraged for a while.

Skip the police.

Who needs the cops? Sue him. He'll take it down in seconds. You won't even have to go to court.

Then, all you need to do is be annoying enough that he moves to Florida. (Unless you already live in Florida, in which case you're screwed.)

Re:Skip the police.

Claim it's damaging your ears and killing your ability to hear sounds in the higher frequency range. If it's on after 10PM (or whatever the local disturbing the peace violations occur), call the cops and report that high pitch noise is disrupting your peace. Have all the neighbors also call. If it's more than one household, they'll do something. When the responding officers don't do anything, get their names and badge numbers (but, as we learned earlier, don't videotape them unless you want to be a martyr) and then call and complain that they responding officers failed to stop the disturbance in the neighborhood and ask for supervisors.

Beat frequency

Build a similar device to emit noise at a slightly different frequency. The result will be horrible sounds as the two waves interfere. The horrible sounds will seem to come from both your source and the original source. You may get the blame but at least the cops/etc will believe that an issue exists.

Egg 'im

Just egg his house. That will surely make him realize his immaturity and bring a swift end to his harassment.

Hmmmm

Am I the only one that thinks this is a novel Slashvertizement?

How many of you thought "hmmmm. I could use this to really annoy xxx"?

And note that the link goes to a specifc supplier of such items. Not a generic link.... say a wiki. I mean, who really believes that some guy cannot get a cop under 40. Cannot figure out that he should talk to the police and explain more, or maybe go to see a lawyer... or maybe sneak into his neighbor's year with a baseball bat and a ski mask?

Do an end run around him.

Several (disjointed) ideas sprang to mind:

1) Get a sound meter (dB meter, noise level meter, or whatever it's called where you are) and call the cops again. Show the meter to the officer.
2) Buy big speakers and send some noise his direction that he CAN hear. I recommend NES chiptunes.
3) Disconnect the device without his knowledge. He can't hear it, so he can't tell if it's working or not.
4) Kick the neighbor in the nuts. If he gets angry, kick him in the nuts again. If he threatens you, proceed to #5.
5) Shoot him. You didn't need the curmudgeonly bastard anyway. Take his stuff and tell his family he went on vacation to BFE. Be sure to dispose of his body properly - through a wood chipper, then burn the chunks. Invite other young neighbors over for BBQ. Display a big cookbook with a cover that says "To Serve Annoying Old Neighbors".

(And just for the humor impaired, options 4 and 5 are not serious. I am not the voice in your head telling you to assault or kill your neighbor. That voice is named Larry. I'm Matt.)

£495 ...?

This guy spent £495 to annoy the shit out of you? Either you deserved this, or the guy is a complete prick, in the latter case, fight fire with fire. Get some _very_ large subwoofers, a good amp, and play a song like Hootchie Mama [stlyrics.com] by 2 live crew, or if that's not your style, maybe something like "Superpredators" by Massive Attack.
    Or, even if you don't like that, just find something with real spleen shattering bass and just blast it.

Also, for those interested, I found a link to the mosquito sound here [bbc.co.uk] from an article at the Beeb here [bbc.co.uk], also, another interesting turn-around:
http://www.boingboing.net/2006/05/24/kids_turn_tee n_repel.html [boingboing.net]
Quite fascinating...

Noise Cancelling

You could try setting up a device (such as a stereo or computer speakers) which cancels out the noise which I believe is 17KHz. If you emit the exact opposite sound, they will cancel out each other. It uses the same principle as noise-cancelling headphones. I hope this ASCII drawing of how the waves will interact helps:

Mosquito Wave: /^\/^\/^\

Opposite Wave: \_/\_/\_/

= Combination: ---------

Apply System Engineering: Full Analysis

Analysis: before implementing a solution, is to make sure you've got the full picture. Note that your neighbor is in fact being harassed by something, if not intentionally. What is that thing? If it's something you are doing... Trade Study: will it be a major or minor imposition to not do it; can you bring yourself to politely inform your neighbor that you'll not do it in exchange for taking the offending device offline?

If either you or the neighbor doesn't want to deal: since you've already alerted the authorities that the device is an issue, I'd pass on petty crime or felony-based solutions you likely suspect, you. You and your neighors should keep a running record of your complaints to the police. You might try borrowing/buying a meter that'll measure the dB of the frequency in question. Then, while you can ask for a younger officer that can hear the noise, if you get someone my age, at least the officer will have something to go on.

If you get the device taken offline without dealing with what's pissing your neighbor off, you may just be trading one headache for another.

I can relate...

I can relate...

Two years ago, the building next to mine was being totally renovated (they gutted everything but the outside walls).

And they had that big honking alarm that would go off each time a cat or a bird would go inside the structure.

Of course, it went off at 2 in the morning many times.

After a few weeks, we got to get pretty pissed at it, so I started to grab a pair of cutters, and enter the place despite it being barricaded (from the third floor, the balconies of the respective buildings are only 2 feet away). Then it's just a matter of finding the wire and snipping it.

Of course, they would fix it, until the next snip...

The last time I did it (at 3 in the morning), I was so pissed that I cut the wire in about 200 one inch long little sections. This must have drove the message home because that's the last time we heard the fucking alarm...

Do this

Here's the plan:

1. Spend the next 30-40 years breeding and training vicious attack dogs
2. Now you're over 40 and can hear it any more. (Plus, everyone loves dogs -- bonus.)

It's foolproof.

Re:Get a young police officer...

If you can't get a young police officer, kidnap a young police officer's young child and strap him to your neighbour's lawn. This will give the police someone to trust, and will also get you away from the house for a few years.

Re:Get a young police officer...

slice its power cord or something at 2AM in the morning

Dispite the redundancy in there, I think that's a great idea! If you keep complaining about the damned thing after you've disabled it, he won't even know it's broken.

Re:still out of luck, time for plan B or C.

He might really just be out to get the bugs? Offer to buy him a better model bug zapper.

If you follow the link in the story, you'd see that the neighbor in question did not install an insect control device (bug zapper) but rather something specifically designed to annoy young people and drive them away. (Mosquito is the brand name). From the link:

The Mosquito ultrasonic teenage deterrent ... With an effective range of between fifteen and twenty meters Compound Security Devices field trials have shown that teenagers are acutely aware of the Mosquito and usually move away from the area within just a couple of minutes.....Mosquito ultrasonic deterrent can solve your problem.

Did he tell you he was out to get you...?

Based on the device the guy installed, I think it goes without saying.

Re:Quit bitching

Yeah, that will work great in a two dimensional world. Here in three dimensions it will suck a lot in all the places where amplitude is doubled instead.