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.

[Rei]

That can't stop you from suing. Look at Jonathan Lee Riches. This is a guy who sued the Guinness Book of World Records for listing him as the man who's filed the most lawsuits in the history of mankind. ;) He's among others, he's sued Bill Belichick, George W. Bush, Martha Stewart, Jeff Gordon, Michael Vick, Steve Jobs, Perez Hilton, Somali pirates, Britney Spears, Benazir Bhutto, Pervez Musharraf, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Adolf Hitler's National Socialist Party, the 13 tribes of Israel, Plato, Nostradamus, Che Guevara, James Hoffa, "Various Buddhist Monks", the Lincoln Memorial, the Eiffel Tower, the USS Cole, the book Mein Kampf, the Garden of Eden, the Roman Empire, the Appalachian Trail, Plymouth Rock, the Holy Grail, the dwarf planet Pluto, and the entire Three Mile Island.

Re:Retard.

[omfgnosis]

But he should really watch out for doubles.

Re:Retard.

[interkin3tic]

It's worth noting that the French, acting on behalf of the Eiffel tower, settled out of court for an undisclosed sum of money.

Re:Retard.

[Dishevel]

How is a story of the French surrendering worth noting? :)

Re:Retard.

[djdavetrouble]

It is suspected that this lawsuit was really a conspiracy just designed to get all named plantiffs one degree of separation away from Kevin Bacon (also named in the suit).

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.

[loose electron]

he only resonates at certain frequencies....

Re:Retard.

[goodmanj]

I have an alergy to sunlight ... when I mentioned to a professional, apparently it's common but not normal and has been diagnosed as an alergy.

No you don't. Get a better professional, or at least spend thirty seconds Googling it.

It's a common genetic condition, probably related to some sort of signal crosstalk between the optic nerve and the nerve that causes sneezes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photic_sneeze_reflex
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/527/why-do-some-people-sneeze-when-going-out-into-bright-light

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.

[interkin3tic]

Is there a term for when you make a joke on /., someone responds by making the joke more obvious, and then they get the funny mod instead of you? Maybe "whooshmodded?"

Anyway, two can play at that game:

?: "Knock knock?"

Frenchman: "Who is there? NEVERMIND WE SURRENDER BECAUSE WE'RE FRENCH AND EAT CHEESE!"

Re:Retard.

[nigelo]

he only resonates at certain frequencies....

No, it seems like a constant high-pitched whine to me...

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.

[pclminion]

My mother in law has a medical condition where exposure to bright sunlight breaks down proteins in her skin. One of the breakdown products generates an auto-immune response. In other words, she's "allergic" to bright sunlight. True, sunlight contains no proteins, but the interaction of sunlight with her skin CREATES proteins to which she is allergic.

I seriously doubt that WiFi radiation could do the same thing, but these processes can't be oversimplified like that.

Re:Retard.

[BikeHelmet]

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.

Maybe that's not what it is.

My neighbour's phone was giving me a nasty headache. I thought it was food allergies, but one time I was in the backyard and his window was opened. I noticed the throbbing was pointing directly at that opening. I went over to his house and explained what was going on. He thought it was really strange, but let me in to look around. Once I figured out it was the phone(took all of 10 seconds to find it), I told him. He was happy to accept the new phone that I gave him later that day. No more headaches.

Best bet... some sort of frequency that I can *almost* hear, but nobody else can? The new phone was the exact same frequency, so I suspect his was somehow defective.

The guy suing could be a hypochondriac, or maybe there's more to it. I can hear CRT TVs - but that's pretty common. I can also hear circuit breakers, capacitors, power lines (I try not to get too close), LCD monitors, battery powered clocks, some watches, etc.; but none of that stuff causes me to have a headache. I have a Wireless G network with the signal strength ramped up - Tomato WRT54GL - but no headache.

I think my (superior?) hearing might be genetic. I have an Uncle nearing age 60, and he can still hear that annoying Mosquito ringtone that's supposed to be Teen-only.

What I don't get is, why would this guy sue? My first line of attack would be begging them to let me network their whole house, if it was real physical discomfort. If it wasn't physical - just something audible like being able to hear their TV - then who cares?

Re:Retard.

[Nemyst]

So much for mod points...

I'd just like to point out that high-pitched noises, often caused by the flyback transformers found in things such as CRT monitors, are a far cry from detecting x-rays and radio waves. Why? Because one is just a sound and we have ears to feel that; that some people cannot hear the sound while others can is related to the auditive acuity of the person, nothing more. Case in point, you can make the test yourself. Just Google for "mosquito sound" and look for the different frequencies. You have a whole array of higher and higher noises which different people will react to differently. I can hear them and it's annoying, but there was a girl in my physics course who'd immediately sense it the second I turned it on no matter where she was in the classroom. This is perfectly valid because we have ears and ears are supposed to do that.

However, as far as I know, the skin isn't supposed to be an x-ray detector. The closest we have to that would be our own eyes, since x-rays are EM waves just like visible light. The skin's only way of triggering a response would be to react adversely to the energy being transmitted (IE alpha/beta/gamma rays, but not as dangerous). I don't really see how this would be possible for extremely short exposures (although I'm not saying it is impossible, I don't know). However, I'd just like to point out: from what I gathered, the GP saw the x-ray scanner. Have you ever felt a tingling sensation when feeling like something's close, even though there isn't anything? It's a bit like a presence, as if you were about to get touched by someone. I'd argue that you might very well be reacting in this way and not because of the actual x-rays. Until you've been bombarded by them randomly with no visual or auditive cues, it's impossible to say whether you're reacting to the x-rays themselves or just to the thought of the x-rays.

Re:Retard.

[qc_dk]

Ummm, because the french have actually been in a lot of wars (50 major european wars since 1500) and won 2/3 of all wars they've been in(since records began)?

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

[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.

Get off my Astral Plane!

[kclittle]

And stop eating meat OR veggies -- I can hear the carrots scream!

I want to sue as well...

[mldi]

Is he crazy? I wanna sue my neighbour for not turning his WiFi back on!

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

Re:Should we punish people for suing?

[MaXintosh]

The plaintiff is a serial litigant. He's sued just about everyone and his uncle before. While I agree, there needs to be protection for those with less extreme claims, there also needs to be more teeth to punishing those who abuse the system. A nice place to start is to punish those with outlandish or vindictive claims.

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.

Re:He will have a hard time proving his case

[tsm_sf]

Ferrets are widely known to promote blood circulation, asshole. One of the landmark studies compared the orgonocephalic health of a man with a ferret strapped to his head against that of a control subject*, with many interesting results.

* tube sock full of mice