Teen repellant-sounds good to me

From cnn.com; this sounds good to me, but of course teens and their breeder parents are crying foul (here's a novel idea, parents-keep an eye on your own little shits so the rest of us don't have to stoop to noise control:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/04/23/teen.be.gone.ap/index.html

NEW YORK (AP) -- A wall-mounted gadget designed to drive away loiterers with a shrill, piercing noise audible only to teens and young adults is infuriating civil liberties groups and tormenting young people after being introduced into the United States.


The Mosquito, which targets loiterers, projects a shrill noise audible only to teens and young adults.

Almost 1,000 units of the device, called the Mosquito, have been sold in the United States and Canada after the product debuted last year, according to Daniel Santell, the North America importer of the device sold under the company name Kids Be Gone.

The high-frequency sound has been likened to fingernails dragged across a chalkboard or a pesky mosquito buzzing in your ear. It can be heard by most people in their teens and early 20s who still have sensitive hair cells in their inner ears. Whether you can hear the noise depends on how much your hearing has deteriorated: How loud you blast your iPod, for example, could affect your ability to detect it.

"It's horrible, loud and irritating," said Eddie Holder, 15, who sprinted from his apartment for school one morning covering one ear with his hand to block out the noise. The device was installed outside the building to drive away loiterers. "I have to hurry out of the building because it's so annoying. It's this screeching sound that you have to get away from or it will drive you crazy."

The device has roiled civil liberties groups in countries where it's in use, including England, Australia and Scotland. England's government-appointed Children's Commission proposed a ban. That group describes it as a weapon that infringes on the basic rights of young people and claims that it could have unknown long-term health effects.

The $1,500 device has also been challenged in some American cities and towns that have proposed installing it, with some criticizing the tactic as needlessly cruel.

Santell said the noise can be heard by animals and babies but is bothersome only to children older than 12 and becomes unbearable after several minutes, making it a perfect teen-repellent. The same sound is used as a cell phone ring tone by deaf adults and is a popular download on the Internet.

The town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, banned the device last year after a movie theater owner installed one.

"There was an outcry, and people didn't like the idea of torturing kids' ears like that," said Ronald Dlugosz, a town official. "People here don't tolerate that kind of stuff."

Milford, Connecticut, faced similar resistance when the city announced plans to install the Mosquito in a park. It increased police patrols instead.

Elsewhere, there have been few or no complaints. A mall in Maryland announced plans to introduce the buzz to disperse skateboarders, and officials and police said they haven't had any outcry. A school district in Columbia, South Carolina, recently installed one on the grille of a school vehicle and another in a parking lot where students gather after high school games, with no complaints.

"We'd have crowds gather in parking lots, and there'd be the usual trash talk, then you'd have fights," said Rick McGee, the school district's emergency services manager. "Now, there's no confrontation at all; they just get aggravated and leave within a few minutes."

Santell, the device's marketer, said most of the company's inquiries are from major corporations and government agencies looking for a way to protect private property. Overseas, complaints arose when the device was projected into public spaces, like sidewalks.

Santell said it does not violate any noise ordinances but added that the company will soon be selling the same product with a higher "power," or decibel output, that will be sold only to government agencies.

Carmen Ramirez, superintendent of the New York apartment building where Eddie Holder lives, described it as "a miracle."

"We used to have young men here all of the time, bothering people in the building and doing illegal things," said Ramirez, 50. "As soon as we put it up, they were gone, and they haven't been back. If they return, we'll just put up more."

A spokesman for the American Civil Liberties Union said the organization does not have a position on the issue. But James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Boston's Northeastern University, said that putting crowd-monitoring devices in the hands of private businesses and citizens is "dangerous."

"There is a significant problem with giving people a tool like this and empowering the public to take over the tasks of law enforcement," Fox said. "It can certainly be used in a way that's inappropriate, and without a doubt, it will be."

Nobody at Holder's apartment building could say where the loitering kids had gone after the Mosquito was installed.

"I just deal with it, but I can't be around here for too long," Holder said. "If I am going to stand around somewhere, it won't be here."

we have had that for years in the UK, it doesnt seem to work that well, it just moves them onto other places. since 2005

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/4768213.stm



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito_(device)#Legal_status_in_the_UK

[edit] Human Rights Act 1998
Liberty has suggested that this device may violate the UK's Human Rights Act 1998.[13]


[edit] Noise laws
The legal status of the The Mosquito under various environmental laws is dubious. The Environmental Protection Act 1990, the Noise and Statutory Nuisance Act 1993, Noise Act 1996, Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 and the Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 all provide legislation dealing with environmental noise.

Defra and the National Assembly for Wales issued a circular providing their interpretation of the legislation of the Noise Act 1996. This includes the following:

For the purposes of the night noise offense, the permitted level... shall be determined in accordance with the following:

In any case where the underlying level of noise does not exceed 25dB, the permitted level shall be 35dB.
In any case where the underlying level of noise exceeds 25dB, the permitted level shall be 10dB in excess of that underlying level.|The Noise Act circular 2004, Defra and the National Assembly for Wales[14]
The Noise Act provides Local Authorities with the power to issue warning notices. Ignoring these notices is an offence which may lead to on-the-spot fines of £100 and confiscation of equipment for people.

This would be better

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/hampshire/4402478.stm

"Southampton is the latest city to hear classical music being played outside convenience stores to deter gangs of youngsters from hanging around.
Eight Co-op stores in the city are broadcasting the works of Mozart and Vivaldi on external speakers.

Store bosses claim the music is working in keeping "intimidating" gangs away.
"

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I just post the stories, for interest.. for everyone

Lord, what fools these mortals be!
- A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act III, Scene ii

Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities."

H.L.Mencken wrote:"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. Albert Einstein

This sounds like a magnificent invention. I could used one in my neighborhood. Kids, who don't even live in my neighborhood, congragate in the mailbox/busstop area at the front of my development, often blocking the road. Believe me the little bastards love to take their sweet-assed time getting out of the way when someone tries to get by. I don't care where the device sends them to, as long as their out of my neighborhood. I hate them so much.

Teen repellant would come nicely packaged as an after-school job. The civil liberties union is involved here? Oh, are we violating their civil rights when we don't want them loitering around?

We've got the little creightons in our neighborhood, also. SO FAR, they are actually not bad. There are a lot of up-and-coming ones, though, so we'll see..........

A few of them will be friendly when spoken to, but some seem like they were never properly socialized by their parents. Kind of like people that get a dog, tie it outside to a dog box, ignore it for years, then bring it inside and it doesn't know how to act.

These teens look at you like a deer in the headlights.

If it were up to me, these mosquito devices would be installed on every lamppost in the country.

I fucking hate the ACLU. All they seem to defend are terrorists and other criminals. When a teen or anyone for that matter is out in public, their 'business' is no longer 'private'. Malls do not profit from loitering teens. The food court businesses may get some dollars but the merchants often complain of how obnoxious teeny-boppers drive off adult shoppers. Hey, I have left a store many times when the loud teens are in there even if I was intending on making a purchase. I do not need anything that badly to tolerate such behaviour. It is either my money or the freeloading teens. Make a choice.

I would LOVE to buy the Mosquito (as well as buying cellphone-be-gone). Why are teenagers who drive cars allowed to blast out their CD players so their shitty music is heard within a 5-mile radium yet this teenager deterrent can't be used? BS, pure and simple.

I remember reading in a "People" magazine a few years ago, that teenagers who were found in violation of noise standards in their neighborhoods were sentenced by a judge to spend hours in a room, listening to nothing but Englebert Humperdink, Tom Jones, and other moldy oldies. I thought that was a fitting punishment.

Since parents can't control their crack monkeys I think the rest of us should be able to zap them with the Mosquito (if it were up to me, I'd use tasers on the bastards and bitches).

Get this...Yesterday I was entering my neighborhood and one of the teen minions that lives here was standing directly in the road with some slut I've never seen before. I waited until the last second to put on my brakes, and the little bitch still stood there. I put down my window and politely (it took all of my energy) asked her to move out of the way. She did, but when I pulled into my driveway and got out, the cunt yelled, "Hey dumbass, the pedestrian has the right of way!" She was dead serious! I think some of these fuckers actually think they have the right to stand in the road. Oh, I pray for the day someone hits one of them. I continue to hate them so much.

Yes, and hopefully it will be a hit and run. I'd hate to see a driver get penalized for hitting one of the little bastards. Useless slabs of flesh.

I've heard of this gizmo! I can confirm it works myself, played the tone over my computer speakers and it drove me bananas.

Sadly it isn't perfect, because it depends on the individual's ears - sometimes older people can hear it and sometimes teens can't. But it's the best form of brat-repellent I've seen yet. Best of all no confrontation is necessary; just plug it in and sit back and relax.

I'm not surprised that the American Crackpots and Lunatics Union is defending the 'rights' of annoying teeney-boppers to loiter around, doing nothing and scaring off customers. Oh for the good old days when shopkeepers could have them thrown out on their butts without worrying about getting sued!

Dark-Star Wrote:
> I'm not surprised that the American Crackpots and
> Lunatics Union is defending the 'rights' of
> annoying teeney-boppers to loiter around, doing
> nothing and scaring off customers. Oh for the good
> old days when shopkeepers could have them thrown
> out on their butts without worrying about getting
> sued!


We've got similar twats in the UK. They defend the "rights" of terrorists, criminals, trouble-makers and teen scum and ignore the rights of law-abiding folks.
The Mosquito device has generated a lot of the headlines here, too, with these stupid 'human rights' people saying it infringes childrens' rights - they don't give a fuck about those of us who DON'T want those little basterds loitering and hassling law-abiding people.

I guess the parents who are calling it a violation of human rights know that if their kids aren't allowed to loiter outside of other places, they'll bring their hellion friends home and hang out -- and cause trouble -- there. Parents don't want to deal with their own children, so they'll cry foul if anyone tries to stop them from foisting them off on other people.

What I don't understand is why do kids have nothing to do? There are TONS of things for teenagers to do. I was never bored and there were fewer forms of entertainment in the 70's and 80's than there are now. Free stuff too, not just things that cost money. I suspect they're all brain dead.