Combating Harassing Use of Mosquito Noise Device? 1059
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?"
Well, you could start by... (Score:5, Funny)
Simple (Score:5, Funny)
Quit bitching (Score:4, Funny)
You kids!! (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Get a young police officer... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Try this (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Get a young police officer... (Score:5, Funny)
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.
ideas (Score:3, Funny)
Egg 'im (Score:5, Funny)
Do an end run around him. (Score:5, Funny)
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.)
Let me tell you how this works (Score:2, Funny)
There's really only one thing to do when faced with a sociopath, and that's to completely stay our of her life entirely. She's so completely emotionally different from you that she's practically not human. Really, her only purpose in life, the only way she can break the monotony of feeling only primitive emotions is to think of ways to make all the people around her jump.
But since you don't have that option, you can at least fight back. This will NOT solve your problem because she can't stop what she's doing. But it'll be fun.
I recommend that if she has a dog or cat, kill it, paint the inside of her car with the feces and blood, dump the organs down her chimney, and throw what's left through her front window. Let her stew on that a while. After she gets her car and house cleaned up, get a can of gas and burn them both to the ground. That's about what it's going to take to stop this old lady if she's truly a sociopath, short of putting her in the hospital or worse.
If you're not willing or able to do this, then you really need to consider what you're going to do. Measured responses are going to be worse than doing nothing at all. Maybe you should disable her noisemaker device somehow. She can't hear it anyway, how will she know it's broken?
Noise Cancelling (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Get a young police officer... (Score:1, Funny)
Comment removed (Score:2, Funny)
I can relate... (Score:5, Funny)
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...
Do this (Score:5, Funny)
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.
Re:Try this (Score:2, Funny)
Gee, all you have to do is play light jazz to drive teenagers off... And that solution is <$10. Quite an invention that light jazz.
Shame (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Well, you could start by... (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Quit bitching (Score:3, Funny)
Are you trying to say the phase-shifted noise of a Mosquito annoyancebot sounds like a viola?
Re:Get a young police officer... (Score:1, Funny)
They would but... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:OUCH! (Score:3, Funny)
Also, pet stores should not ever have ultrasonic store alarms, because rodents can hear them and the sound is very painful. These will kill gerbils from stress. Disclosure: I am not a gerbil, descended from a gerbil, or use gerbils for unnatural purposes, at least not that often.
Re:Noise Cancelling (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Quit bitching (Score:5, Funny)
And then there's people who lack the fundamental understanding that sound waves do not propagete at lightspeed.
Re:Try this (Score:4, Funny)
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:Try this (Score:2, Funny)
Who cares? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Well, you could start by... (Score:2, Funny)
If he were a mature adult he wouldn't have a problem because he couldn't hear it!
Re:Try this (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Well, you could start by... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Behave like a man (Score:1, Funny)
Odd thing that all 4 tire valves leak only when he parks across 2 spaces.
Re:Well, you could start by... (Score:3, Funny)
ObSimpsons (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I can relate... (Score:3, Funny)
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.
Great idea! (Score:3, Funny)
The population is too large to limit yourself to peaceful solutions. Do what you feel!
Re:Well, you could start by... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hat pins work wonders. (Score:4, Funny)
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.
Re:Well, you could start by... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Behave like a man (Score:1, Funny)
Since the guy got himself elected HA president (he's was a professor at the local university, and had a forceful personality), it was hard to get anyone to do anything about it, even with videotape evidence.
He ended up the least liked guy in the development of over 300 homes. Everyone knew him, and generally hated him.
So, we took the easy route. Nobody else in a several house radius owned a dog. We bought a few dog whistles. And they got placed into trees, or on rooftops. On the homes all around his house.
No matter which way the wind blew, one of the whistles would start to sound. And his dog would start to bark. Loudly. At all hours of the night. Since he had a toddler himself, their baby would get woken up constantly, and the parents couldn't sleep well, either. And we kindly kept calling the police about his dog.
Since his dog acted totally normal away from the house, the guy started to suspect something, but he couldn't prove a thing. Eventually, we started to see the dog on a leash outside the house all the time, the lawnmower stopped starting at 7:45, and about a month later, put the house up for sale. Claimed the dog just didnt'like the house.
Cheapest fix ever.
Re:right back at them (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Well, you could start by... (Score:3, Funny)
Ice Cream Truck (Score:3, Funny)
AIK
Re:Well, you could start by... (Score:3, Funny)
I was chatting with some friends in their living room one friday night, with the windows/patio door open to let in air. The neighbour across the backyard came over to complain because she "couldn't hear the leaves in the trees".