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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?"
Instead of "Ask Slashdot", shouldn't this be under "Ask Your Lawyer"?
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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.
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.)
Why don't you try talking to the guy-- listen to him-- this simple act will make him more comfortable with you. Apologize to him. Buy him a gift. Show kindness.
Which is of more value to you-- an empty, hollow sense of victory that will bring you no satisfaction, even if it does occur, or peace?
"Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love." -Mahatma Gandhi
"Suppose someone, to annoy, Provokes you to do some evil act. Why allow anger to arise and thus Do exactly as he wants you to do? If you get angry Then maybe he will suffer, maybe not. But by feeling anger yourself You certainly do suffer." "For in this world, Hatred is never appeased by more hatred; It is love that conquers hatred. This is an eternal law." -The Buddha
It's amazing what you can do with a $0.99 bottle of super-glue!
Yeah, like getting yourself tossed in jail for vandalizing other people's property! Woo, hoo!
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I guess if you're completely amoral and sociopathic...
I was about to suggest that but you beat me to it. So let me add a little suggestion: Instead of trying to carefully break the thing in the middle of the night, buy another identical device from wherever he got it (Home Depot, whatever) and take your time breaking it carefully. Then just swap the two in the middle of the night. Then return the properly-functioning one to the store for a refund.
Unless you can EXACTLY duplicate the signal - which you can't - and transmit its inverse from EXACTLY the same point - which you can't - noise cancelling over an area will not work. It works in headphones because the area covered is much smaller than the sound wavelength - that is not so here.
= 63 in a small room, where there will be lots of echoes. I'm 60 but I can hear it if I turn the volume up, a high pitched warble that changes in a very disconcerting way when I move my head. (Not everyone over 25 is deaf!)
Imagine throwing two stones into a quiet pond. The two expanding waves will intersect and cancel at some points - but half a wavelength further on they will be in phase and so double. So it will be with the sound - varying from silent to twice as loud depending where you are. As the wavelength will be small, moving your head will be very uncomfortable! You can try the effect if you play the clean MP3 sample you'll find at http://www.star94.com/shows/index.cfm?show=cr&cid
Meanwhile - IGNORE the idiots here suggesting various illegal measures. Those WILL get the police involved, but not in the way you want. However, if you could get the authorities to recognise the problem (get the neighbours to all complain to your local councillor as well as the police), you may be able to persuade them to take out an ASBO against the offender preventing him from continuing the nuisance. (For our US friends, an ASBO is an "Anti-Social Behaviour Order", and ignoring it becomes a criminal offence).
Agreed - my first reaction to this is WTF?! It's a shame that we live in such a paranoid society where everybody thinks their neighbor is "out to get them" and that somehow that justifies an escalating spiral of "revenge" tactics. Life is too f'king short..you all should learn to relax more.
Did you ever consider that maybe because he can't HEAR it he doesn't know there is a problem? Can you talk to him about it calmly and respectfully, or have you already become such bitter rivals that you would/could never do that..
Like WTF would putting glue in the door locks accomplish? Nothing..because if you are smart you wouldn't get caught..and he wouldn't have a CLUE that the reason you did it was because of the "ultrasonic jammer". He would just get more irrate and do something MORE irritating. MATURE adults try to talk out their problems..assuming that you aren't living in redneck-city or something.
Signed Sincerely,
Your local naive anonymous coward.
I think that is a good idea... but if I were you, I would ask a friend (who the elderly gentelman in question has never met) to go and ask. He/she should simply pretend/imply that they live "nearby"... the fact that the man has never met this person will make him think twice. He's probably not evil at the core, and he's only trying to get back at certain people. If he suddenly realizes that he's annoying others, he will probably stop.
This new friend could be someone a bit older than all of you, in which case he may sympathize with them more and stop this particular annoying behavior.
Alternately, you might get a friendly and attractive female to go and do the asking. It's amazing how frequently that can resolve a situation with a grumpy old man. I've seen it work more than once.
Only if you have the attitude that "If perfection can not be achieved we shouldn't bother striving for it." Another wrong only leads us further away from a peaceful society towards the vigilante style societies of our past. By your model if I consider what your posting as "wrong," I have the right to seek vengence to "right" it. Only by treating others how we WISH to be treated, and not by how they treat us first, is our society going to advance. Will we ever achieve 100% of people doing it? No, but that doesn't mean that it's a dumb thing to do.
I was quoted out of context in my autobiography...
If he can't hear it, I think the easy fix is to wait until he is gone, then replace the batteries with dead ones, snip the power cord someplace where it won't be immediately obvious, or disable the device in some other way. Since he can't hear it, he'll just assume that it's working and no escalation is necessary.
'the Internet is right.'