Man Sues Neighbor For Not Turning Off His Wi-Fi

Scyth3 writes "A man is suing his neighbor for not turning off his cell phone or wireless router. He claims it affects his 'electromagnetic allergies,' and has resorted to being homeless. So, why doesn't he check into a hotel? Because hotels typically have wireless internet for free. I wonder if a tinfoil hat would help his cause?"

Comments

Retard.

[XPeter]

You can't be "Allergic to wi-fi"

Put him in a room, and turn the wireless on and off. Guaranteed he won't be able to tell the difference.

Re:Retard.

[Leebert]

Put him in a room, and turn the wireless on and off. Guaranteed he won't be able to tell the difference.

That's all well and good, and I'm sure the guy is full of it, BUT...

Many allergic reactions (like my own seasonal allergies) don't come and go like a light switch in the presence or absence of the allergen.

I could sit in a clean room for 2 or 3 days after getting really spun up from my tree allergies until the symptoms really begin to diminish.

Re:Retard.

[AmigaMMC]

What next? Is he going to ask radio stations to stop broadcasting? Or is he allergic only to frequencies used by Wi-Fi routers?

We live in a world that is constantly bombarded by radio waves, can't really hide anywhere.

Re:Retard.

[2short]

"Many allergic reactions (like my own seasonal allergies) don't come and go like a light switch in the presence or absence of the allergen."

But all allergic reactions (including your seasonal allergies) occur when the body identifies proteins in the allergen as belonging to an attacking organism, and produces antibodies in response. To put it simply, if ridiculously, there are no proteins in wi-fi signals. So, even if wifi has any unusual effect on this guy, it isn't an allergy.

"I could sit in a clean room for 2 or 3 days after getting really spun up from my tree allergies until the symptoms really begin to diminish."

Of course. Antibodies remain in your blood well after exposure. But if you sat in a clean room until you had no symptoms, then inhaled a vial I gave you, and waited in the clean room to see what happened, you could tell me if the vial contained tree pollen or just something that smelled like it but wasn't. Can this guy do something similar with a box that might be a wifi router or not? I don't know, but a lot of other people have claimed sensitivity to wifi, and none of them have done it, so I'm guessing he can't either.

Re:Retard.

[Lunix Nutcase]

Except he claims to have an allergy to wifi. If he shows no obvious allergy when he is unaware of the presence of wifi it would show to all how he is full of shit.

Re:Retard.

[MrNaz]

I have an alergy to sunlight, usually when emerging from a dark room into bright sunlight my eyes water, my nose goes ichy and I sneeze sometimes. It lasts a few minutes until my eyes adjust. I always thought this was a natural normal reaction and thought nothing of it, indeed it makes sense that your eyes water in bright light. But no, when I mentioned to a professional, apparently it's common but not normal and has been diagnosed as an alergy.

Bee Ess.
Sensitivity to sunlight is NOT an allergy. An allergy is a disorder of the immune system. A physiological response to physical stimulation is not an immune reaction, it's a physiological reaction.

If we redefined allergy to include that, then it would lose all meaning. E.g., Everyone would be allergic to being punched in the nose because it made your eyes water. It may even make you cry like a girl.

"Indeed there are people who can die from an alergic reaction to UV light.

It's called "melanoma". It, too, is not an alergic reaction.

Yet it's plausible that people are alergic to EMF, it's certainly established that people can be alergic to parts of the EM spectrum.

No. QED.

Re:Retard.

[flatrock]

The existence of his allergies or lack thereof is irrelevant. The case should be dismissed because it is not his neighbor's resonsibility to go beyond FCC regulations in limiting radio emissions from his property. Turning off his cell phone will also do nothing about the cell towers in the area.

The guy with the allergies can take steps to block or at least seriously attenuate signals comming into his house. It may not be cheap, but since when is dealing with medical problems cheap.

He can also move to a rural area where such emissions are less in order to avoid them.

Re:Retard.

[ysth]

Um, no, he didn't. That was the original joke, just using subtlety instead of the ice pick to the forehead.

Re:Retard.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny, if you give someone a tuna sandwich from two identical cans of tuna but tell them one of the sandwiches was made from Organic Grown Super Healthy Tuna Grown in Chemically Pure Water, they will tell you almost without fail that the fancy tuna sandwich tastes better.

Similarly, if you lay in a machine with a bunch of spinning and whirring going on around you and know you're getting an X-ray, you might think you can feel the X-ray.

Re:Retard.

[Anachragnome]

"If (Firstenberg) cannot obtain preliminary relief, he will be forced to continue to sleep in his car, enduring winter cold and discomfort, until this case can be heard."

Someone might want to point out to this moron (or better yet, the guy he is suing) that his car generates NUMEROUS magnetic fields.

Alternator, ignition coils, speed sensors, actuators, every inch of energized wiring...pretty much the entire car is enveloped in magnetic fields unless the battery is disconnected, and even then, all the magnets located in the many devices are still creating magnetic fields.

Don't live there

[DeadPixels]

Even if we were to assume that these "electromagnetic allergies" did exist, no one is forcing that man to live there. As an example, I'm allergic to dogs, but I'm not suing my neighbor for owning one. It's my choice to live where I do and it's not my prerogative to tell him that he can't own a dog.

litmus test

[MaXintosh]

I have a way to be fair to this guy, as well as punish people abusing torts. It's very simple:
a) If he can demonstrate his ability to detect electromagnetic fields under reasonable experimental conditions, they'll consider his case.
b) If he can't demonstrate his ability to detect electromagnetic fields under reasonable experimental conditions significantly more than chance, he owes the plaintiff the same amount he's seeking.

I call this the `put up or shut up` principle. Although, it might be more widely known as the `Let's not be flaming idiots` principle.

Re:litmus test

[LWATCDR]

Or let's actually be very fair.
Using WiFi is totally legal and within the other home owners rights. Even if he has this alergy it isn't up to his neighbor to do anything about it.
May his health insurance provider will offer to build him a Faraday cage. All he would need to do is cover his house with chicken wire, paint and stucco over it and connect it to ground.
That would protect him from not only WiFi but also radar from planes flying over head, TV and Radio broadcasts, and even Satellite transmissions.
Of course he would have to give up electricity all together to really have an EM free home but that is his problem.

Re:litmus test

[IndustrialComplex]

we are on slashdot for god's sake!

You know what? You are right. Lets give that the Slashdot treatment.

faraday cages do not block elecromagnetic waves.
Depends on the meaning of the word block.

antimatter cannot be transported in a suitcase. Of course it can, just not transported very far. And it has the side benefit of transporting everything around it immediately afterward.

homeopathy has no scientific evidence. Of course it has scientific evidence. The evidence suggests that Homeopathy is bunk, but there is plenty of evidence.

earth is not flat.
You just need to look at it on the right scale.

Re:litmus test

[Anonymous Coward]

I question the validity of your point that the Earth is flat, even with your choice of scale.

Re:litmus test

[SCPRedMage]

The fact that it's psychological rather than physical doesn't make it any less of a problem.

But it DOES make it a problem that was neither caused by, nor can be relieved by, his neighbor's actions. Which makes it his own damn problem.

Simple test...

[Loki_1929]

I think this guy's full of it, but there's a pretty simple test. Blindfold him and drive him out to a nice, open, quiet country setting. Something with lots of fresh air, birds chirping, no cars, no people, etc. Somewhere where you can smell flowers from a mile away and it feels like you're on a country road in the middle of nowhere. Park under high tension lines. Then ask him how he feels. If he's not on the ground doubled over in pain, he's a POS and full of it.

And if this guy really does have that severe a reaction to all technology, then Darwin says he should go stuff. Let him join an Amish community and live the rest of his life in peace. He has no right to shut down every invention of the past hundred years everywhere he goes simply because he's a genetic disaster.

Re:Microwave Ovens? Cordless Phones?

[MightyMartian]

He clearly needs to sue the Sun for giving such a constant stream of high energy particles. Then, of course, there's the galaxy, with those awful cosmic rays. Hell, there's the blackbody radiation.

I hope this guys has a lawyer with a pretty clear schedule.

On a more serious note, this guy needs to be sued into bankruptcy.

phobia

[wizardforce]

If the neighbor's house was emitting dangerous levels of gamma radiation then the suit would definately have merit but this is a severe phobia not a physiological reaction to wifi "radiation." There is zero evidence what so ever that anyone has any adverse reaction to wifi and even if there was. it would not be an "allergy."

Don't sue, get $1M instead...

[nweaver]

As has been mentioned by others, WiFi sensitivity should easily count for paranormal under the James Randi Educational Foundation's $1M paranormal prize. http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html

Maybe this is a dumb question, but...

[lemur666]

...how exactly did he know his neighbor had a wireless router running, unless he used some sort of wireless device (all of which produce their own EM emissions) to specifically detect the EM emissions coming from his neighbor? And no, divining rods don't count, regardless of what Iraqi bomb squads are doing.

i'll half-assed troll this one

[ClioCJS]

Can you demonstrate your ability to detect asbestos?

If not, it must not be harming you.

Easy Fix

[Erasmus]

100% of all Wi-Fi allergies can be cured with one change to your router settings: disable SSID broadcast.