Driving Away Teens With High Frequency Noise

ars writes "The New York Times is reporting on a device called the Mosquito invented by Howard Stapleton designed to drive teens away by emitting a high frequency noise at 75db. Apparently most older people can not hear the sounds, but teens can not stand it. Reports are that it works quite well, but some older people can hear it too. He found the prefect irritating sound by experimenting on his children."

Comments

Huntington metro station in northern Virginia

[orangepeel]

This just looks like an ultrasonic animal repeller to me. Here's an easy Google Search that shows how common they are. The thing is, anyone with decent hearing will hear these ultrasonic devices too -- and yes, they are extremeley irritating, to the point of being painful. My parents live way out in the country and use one to keep deer away from their garden, and another one to keep their neighbor's cats away from their parked cars. Having to suffer around 2 of those things any time I visit my folks, I can easily recognize the high-pitched agony-inducing devices now.

And as a result, I suspect there is a powerful one in use at the Huntington metro station. It's cranked way up, frankly to the point that I worry about hearing damage when I walk through the protected area. I can hear the sound just inside the entrance, aimed right at the turnstyles (slightly stronger at the side near the fare card machines). In this case, I imagine they're using it to keep birds and squirrels out of the station. The station itself is in a surprisingly wooded area, nestled into the side of a small hill. I'm sure they found an ultrasonic animal repeller was the only thing that worked at keeping critters out of the station. It nearly keeps me out too ... it actually makes me feel slightly nauseous if I hang around in that entrance area too long.