the MOSQUITO

To start:
Hi Aya! good to know at least one of my friends reads my blog.

I read an article on a teenage repellent this morning- "The Mosquito." This thing blasts a high pitched (17.4 kHz) noise at 85 decibels, which a little less loud than a train whistle at 500', is used to annoy teenagers, as mostly teenagers and young adults can hear this sound.

My stance?

At my house there is a mouse repellent that screeches at 18kHz at 90dB. However, there is a dog option if you have an animal which screeches at 19kHz at 85dB. Ours is set to the latter, and it sounds like this:

bweeeEEEPP! bweeeEEEP! bweeeEEEP! (but it doesn't stop...)

My parents can't hear it. To me, it's like audible death. I no longer watch television in this room because of how horrible the sound is (and this room has the best TV in the house!).

So my stance is that this is child abuse. Instead of warning the loitering teens, these devices automatically punch them in the ear to get them away. As a teen, one who has loitered, I know that a kind police officer saying "Yo kids, leave!" is far better than being punched in the ear. Also, one example used in the article was a kid who had the Mosquito attached to his apartment building. Why doesn't the landlord just ask the kid and his family to move out? We make such a big deal about police brutality and I feel this is the same thing, only instead of hitting us or shooting us, this device is beating our earlobes in.

I rest my case.