High-pitched whine drives away teens, people over 30 can't hear it

[DS1]

teens and young adults.

http://news.com.com/Whats+the+buzz+Teens+cant+stand+it/2100-11395_3-5974937.html?part=rss&tag=5974937&subj=news

Though he did not know it at the time, the idea came to Howard Stapleton when he was 12 and visiting a factory with his father, a manufacturing executive in London.

Opening the door to a room where workers were using high-frequency welding equipment, he found he could not bear to go inside. "The noise!" he complained. "What noise?" the grownups asked.

Now 39, Stapleton has taken the lesson he learned that day--that children can hear sounds at higher frequencies than adults can--to fashion a novel device that he hopes will provide a solution to the eternal problem of obstreperous teenagers who hang around outside stores and cause trouble.

-------------------

So far, the Mosquito has been road-tested in only one place, at the entrance to the Spar convenience store in this town in South Wales. Like birds perched on telephone wires, surly teenagers used to plant themselves on the railings just outside the door, smoking, drinking, shouting rude words at customers and making regular disruptive forays inside. "On the low end of the scale, it would be intimidating for customers," said Robert Gough, who, with his parents, owns the store. "On the high end, they'd be in the shop fighting, stealing and assaulting the staff." Gough (pronounced GUFF) planned to install a sound system that would blast classical music into the parking lot, another method known to horrify hang-out youths into dispersing, but never got around to it. But last month, Stapleton gave him a Mosquito for a free trial. The results were almost instantaneous. It was as if someone had used anti-teenager spray around the entrance, the way you might spray your sofas to keep pets off. Where disaffected youths used to congregate, now there is no one.


:popcorn:

[Midlodemocrat]

1. That actually would be a good idea for smoke alarms.

Evidence has shown that kids under 14 don't wake to smoke alarms. Pretty scary.

We were in a hotel in Williamsburg a couple of years ago and the smoke alarm went off in the hall. My eldest woke up, but not the two younger kids. It had never occurred to me that they wouldn't wake to that piercing sound.

[GOPisEvil]

2. Hahahahahahahaha!!!

Let's equate teenagers to pests like insects and vermin. :bounce:

[DS1]

3. You don't?

:D

[GOPisEvil]

5. Some of them...suck. Others...are good people.

The ones that suck...O8)

[Midlodemocrat]

6. No, they're more like leeches.

Sucking the life blood out of everyone they come across.

[Loonman]

4. With all due respect

Not all teens are wonderful, kind, caring, courteous, and polite people. I should know, I was one.


Poor parenting, you know.

[matcom]

7. YYYEEEEHHHAAAWWWW

:bounce:

i want a mounted one for the front of my house! :D

[DS1]

8. I want one on each side of my car

like deer whistles

[matcom]

9. do they come in scooter sizes?

:bounce:

[DS1]

10. If not, there's always a PA system and Tony Bennett

:shrug:

[tigereye]

17. but Tony Bennett is cool now

or he was last year....

[Lochloosa]

19. Hey, great idea. Turn them on when that piece of shit with the bass the

size of his trunk drives up next to you.

[sinkingfeeling]

11. Where can I get one?

[underpants]

12. Cindy Lauper released a new album?

:shrug:

[qnr]

13. Wonder how it impacts the younger ones that actually want to come

in and shop? (I'll admit I didn't read the whole article).

[TimeChaser]

14. Wow, I thought I was a freak when I could hear high pitched noises

that others couldn't.

[Left_Winger]

15. Low pitched rumble drove teens away and this person over 30 heard it

During my first class of the day a young lad kept falling asleep. I was on my way over to knock on his desk to wake him when it happened. Instead of snoring himself awake, he farted himself awake. The others in the class picked up their desks and instantly moved away from him. I backed off from him (yes, it stank!). The guilty one sat there in a daze then asked, "Did I do that?" At this point we were all laughing so damned hard; and there he was seated all alone... "Heck, I was asleep..."

Take the advice of someone who works with teens everyday: You do not need a high-tech device, just a good farter to keep teens away if they bother you.

[Hugin]

16. What? Did you say something?

Darn, I could've sworn I heard something.

[liontamer]

18. it's not as if only teenagers can hear it

frequency detection drops with age, so children (and babies) will hear it, as will people in their 20's and people older than that who have protected their hearing(people from rural areas and classical musicians usually still have good hearing). so while this might be useful in an empty parking lot late at night, during the day this will be highly impractical.