McNallys Funeral Home in Balbriggan is using a “Mosquito” teenager alarm. It plays a sharp high pitched tone 24/7 (even when the business is closed) which can be heard across the road and up and down the street. The tone is a high enough frequency that it can only be heard by younger people, and is aimed at reducing anti social behaviour and loitering. I myself am 20 years old and am constantly harassed by the noise on my way to work and when walking through town, I have never participated in any anti social behaviour or loitering on the premises, yet am being punished daily, as are many of my friends.

According to the articles below, the device can be considered a form of harassment and would be a non fatal offence against a person. I have reached out to the business which resulted in a long back and forth email chain and no turning off of the device. I have rang the Garda station on 2 occasions, both times they said they would send a vehicle out, never heard back.

The beeping noise this device emits is awful, I am writing this post after just having walked by the device and I can still feel it ringing in my ears, I can only imagine the upset it causes to people with autism, tinnitus, or other conditions which result in over sensitivity.

I am considering contacting a solicitor, does anyone know if I have any recourse here?

Note: Tony Murphy TD has offices in the same building, I have reached out to him also and was surprised to learn he defends the use of this harassment device.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/alarms-to-repel-teens-removed-from-dublin-city-council-flats-1.3563086

https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1997/act/26/section/2/enacted/en/html#sec2

Thanks

29 comments

  2. It’s actually kind of funny, because anyone that can help you or do anything about it, won’t be able to hear it.

  3. I thought this was satire until I read further.

    An illegal teenager alarm…like those things that keep mice away. Weird.

    Maybe a more logical thing would be to leave humane teenager traps lying around and stick a PS5 in it 😄

  5. The council handles commercial noise complaints. If they think it’s valid (it is) they’ll get the EPA to send a guy and tell him to knock it off.

  10. These alarms were very popular for years when I was younger. Don’t hear them anymore so don’t know if they’re still a thing. But early 2010s I always remember them

  11. Seems it should be one for the council under a nuisance noise compliant. Failing that pay a solicitor €50 for a nasty letter.

  12. I don’t have any help to offer but just wanted to say that I’m disappointed that most commenters don’t seem to be taking you seriously. This is an absolute menace and I hope you get some traction in addressing it.

  13. You are, legally speaking, correct. The definition of assault under the S.2 of the Non Fatal Offences Against The Person Act defines assault as:

    2.—(1) A person shall be guilty of the offence of assault who, without lawful excuse, intentionally or recklessly— (a) directly or indirectly applies force to or causes an impact on the body of another. Section 2 (2) states the force can include application of heat, light, electric current, noise or any other form of energy.

    Unfortunately the Guards just aren’t going to care. You could involve a solicitor and take a civil case in the tort of trespass against the person as the application of noise in this instance would be considered battery. Then again, civil cases are expensive should they progress beyond the solicitors letter stage, if you’re bothered to go that far at all. The wheels of justice grind slowly…

  14. There was one of those outside my *school* down in Ongar. It was up by Hansfield secondary, most students walked through the tiny estate to get home because it took an age to go around, until some fecker put one up outside his house right on the road. If i wasnt such a coward at the time i wouldve hurled a rock at it. I think someone did and it was taken down.

  15. I swear my neighbors have one of them up. Me and my sister can hear a high pitched tone walking past their house but our parents seemingly can’t.

  16. Contact all the other TDs and county councillors and tell them that TD supports it. Any of them that see him as competition or opposition will get is sorted quickly. Also report it to Sinn Fein headquarters. Tell them about it’s impact on you and show them his response.

  17. Thank you for posting this; there is a house on the street next to mine in Raheny which has installed one of these, and I have to walk past it every day to get to the Dart. My partner and I both hear it, even from the other side of the road, and he’s 43 and I’m 37. They are horrible pieces of equipment and I’ve been trying to figure out if there’s anything I can do about it. There are at least some useful comments here to go off…let’s hope these devices don’t become more popular.

  18. I’m 46 and can hear one that’s at my local shopping centre. My wife thinks I’m crazy. You can feel it in your back teeth as much as you can hear it

  19. Get a bunch of your friends to leave them google reviews all 1 star saying you went to a removal of a friend there but couldn’t stay because of the alarm…
    It will drag down their rating and when people search funeral home balbriggan or Dublin…. they will see a low score. They won’t like that. Email them in a week or two say if the alarm is smashed up and outside their door you’ll get the reviews removed or changed but if they ever put one back up it will happen again and they will stay up.

  20. It’s also audible to people with sensory perception issues, including people with ADHD/ADD, ASD, many migraine disorders, and more. I’m 36. I would have broken that thing out of sheer frustration. It might be designed for (against) teenagers, but it is not limited to them. It’s harassment, and would be worth mentioning to whomever you talk to that this is a serious problem. Honestly, get some supportive research, find a lawyer and bring it to them.

  21. Call your local Garda station. I had a neighbor put one up recently to “keep cats away”. Spoke to her and she wouldn’t remove it. Called the local station and they spoke to them and it was removed.

    I actually seen a cat lounging in front of it at one point. Was gas

  23. If you can hear it, then a guide dog can too. That has to be counter to some disability legislation surely?

    Joe Duffy would lap that up

  24. There was one near mine. I went from telling the guards, to emailing my local councillors (sending them the same IT link as you posted above) to finally emailing my local TDs because the councillors were beyond useless. One TD out of all of them followed up with it (the alarm was in a private dwelling beside a playground 🙃) and kept me updated along the way. It’s since been removed!

    Keep fighting the good fight! ✊

  27. Rant time: I am buying a house. I will own property. And on the street where I will pay a lot of money to own that house… There are MULTIPLE teenager alarms that drive me mad when I walk down my own fucking street. Going to look for solutions in this thread.

  28. Buy a JBL clip 4 speaker and hand it on your backpack or w/e as you walk by.

    If you record the sound you could create a new sound that is the same amplitude but inverse it’s phase.. cancelling the sound out..

    Or noise cancelling headphones I guess.

  29. A few years back I was renting one of those storage spaces in an industrial estate in the UK. One of the businesses there installed a mosquito alarm. I was past forty then and, fuck me, it knocked the stuffing out of me. It wasn’t on constantly, it was going off it bursts so I had driven near it without realising. When it went off I was disorientated to the point where I had to park the van and get out to run away from the area. Had to ring someone to collect me I was that bad and even threw up.

    This was a major problem for me because it meant that I couldn’t myself access the equipment and parts we were storing. I tried reporting it to the police and the council and, well, let’s just say they weren’t helpful. In the end I had to law the bastards which made them remove it. I think when they seen (or rather heard) the dashcam footage they knew it would be bad. There I was driving along in the van without a care in the world and then it went off sending me screaming.

    I see some people quibbling that this isn’t assault. I have been assaulted but that fucking thing was way fucking worse. It most definitely is fucking assault.

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