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?"

Comments

Well, you could start by...

[Anonymous Coward]

You could start by getting off his damn lawn.

Re:Well, you could start by...

[shorgs]

From the link: the Mosquito ultrasonic teenage deterrent has been described as "the most effective tool in our fight against anti social behaviour". Shop keepers around the world have purchased the device to move along unwanted gatherings of teenagers and anti social youths. Gatherings of anti social youths. Other featured products are, the worlds darkest lightbulb and the worlds hottest air conditioner.

Simple

[NitsujTPU]

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

Quit bitching

[sockman]

And record the "noise" phase shift it by 180, and play it on your stero. Viola, no mosquito.

Re:Quit bitching

[Ihlosi]

You sir, who likes to call other people idiots, seem to lack a fundamental understanding of the relationship between frequency and wavelength, as well as the basics of using an internet search engine.

And then there's people who lack the fundamental understanding that sound waves do not propagete at lightspeed.

Re:Get a young police officer...

[jpardey]

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:Try this

[Frumious Wombat]

Do it yourself. If you're annoying people, DIY Hendrix is better than recorded. Be sure to wear your American Flag suit when you step out on your back deck to serenade him. An old Heathkit amp with some bad solder joints for extra distortion will help as well.

Re:Get a young police officer...

[ivan256]

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.

Egg 'im

[talkingpaperclip]

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

Do an end run around him.

[Mattintosh]

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.)

Noise Cancelling

[CompotatoJ]

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: ---------

I can relate...

[Pig Hogger]

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...

Re:I can relate...

[DavidTC]

Oh, no, alarms are serious business.

For example, when a car alarm goes off, that means someone is trying to steal it. It might have scared them away temporarily, but they'll certainly be back to steal the car.

And, remember, it is legal to commit a lesser crime to prevent a larger one. For example, to stop felony grand theft auto, feel free to commit misdemeanor vandalism by slashing the tires of the car, keeping that pesky car thief from making off it with it. You might want to slash two of them, as most cars have spares in the trunk, and obviously car thiefs can get in there if they can get inside the car to set off the alarm. (Surely they have to get inside the car, no one would be crazy enough to have an alarm that goes off when people merely touch a car.)

When the car owner finally shows up, he'll be very grateful that his car is still there. If you have time, though, you might want to leave a note for him that says the time his alarm went off, and telling him that he should have the police dust the inside of the car for fingerprints to try to track down the thieves. But I like to be an anonymous hero, walking past with a quick bend-and-slash, stroll to the next wheel, bend-and-slash, saving their car, and walking off with the mere satifaction of a job well done being my only reward.

Do this

[Kohath]

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.

They would but...

[Anonymous Coward]

...they don't know his email address.

Re:Try this

[Anonymous Coward]

The old don't tend to sleep well.
The old are rumored to favor shotguns loaded with rock salt.
The old are generally sympathetic figures to those of us who don't deal with them every day.

You are a snot-nosed young'un who's hopping a fence at 3am with a deadly weapon, and just stupid enough to admit that you were planning to vandalize a particular old person's house.

This could go very, very badly for you.

I should know. I'm 35 and I already own the shotgun.

Re:Hat pins work wonders.

[gregmac]

More importantly, he can't really do anything with the police about it because to explain how it's broken he'd have to explain what it's supposed to do in the first place, and then he'd be admitting that your complaints about him were true. He can hardly complain "hey, they broke my illegal noise making machine!"

I remember watching an episode of "Cops" once where a guy called to report a robbery, but was very vague about what was stolen. Eventually, he told them that the guy had stole a few grams of marijuana or something from him, which the officers found quite entertaining, to say the least.