Man Sues Neighbor Claiming Wi-Fi Made Him Sick 574
OrangeMonkey11 writes "A Santa Fe man who claims to suffer from 'electromagnetic sensitivities' has sued his neighbor after she refused to stop using wireless devices. 59-year-old Arthur Firstenberg claims his sensitivity can be set off by cellphones, routers and other electronic devices. From the article: 'Firstenberg, 59, wanted Raphaela Monribot to limit her use of the devices. "I asked her to work with me," he said. "Basically, she refused." So he sued Monribot in state district court, seeking $530,000 in damages and an injunction to force her to turn off the electronics. "Being the target of this lawsuit has affected me very adversely," Monribot said Friday in response to e-mailed questions. "I feel as if my life and liberty are under attack for no valid reason, and it has forced me to have to defend my very basic human rights."'"
the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Insightful)
the more they'll act like morons.
I wish reporters wouldn't give this type of crap the time of day.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep - let's ignore this story and focus on the previous story, which is... let's see... A NEW APPLE PRODUCT RUMORS!!
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Insightful)
"the more attention you give morons, the more they'll act like morons."
I disagree with your sentiment. If you publicly embarrass somebody for acting stupidly. They often think twice before acting stupidly again. What we need is more bad press for these types of people, like that town in Africa where everybody claimed to be getting sick from radio waves until they were told that the tower had been turned off two weeks prior. Also there is the guy who became violently ill only when cell phones rang (but not when they communicated with the cell tower silently). Yea. Lots of stupid people more need attention.
Scientology too... but that is another thread.
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Africa? I thought that story happened in the U.S.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Informative)
Which is not to say that similar events have not happened in many places.
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no, the Aurora Borealis will cause him to be ill too.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Funny)
Damn Tom, They moved Santa Fe from New Mexico to California?
Cool... that probably raised the IQ in both places.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Interesting)
We had something similar happening here, where people started complaining about the electromagnetic field from a cell repeater tower.
PR statement from the telco: "Gee, wonder what it'll be like when we turn it on in a few weeks..."
Needless to say that the court tossed the suit without a hearing.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh, almost forgot: Of course the complaint was repeated a few weeks later when they turned it on.
The judge issued a fine for wasting the court's time a second time. Don't remember the exact wording, but the general meaning was something like "don't play smart, we already know that you fake it".
Reading verdicts can be quite entertaining at times. Especially when judges display a sense of humor.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:4, Informative)
This story is typical.
We had the same exact situation here (Kiev, Ukraine). As far as I know, it's now a standard operating procedure for telecoms here to wait 1-2 months before turning on a base station after it is installed, so such complaints can be tossed out immediately.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Informative)
Do you have a source for that?
Not quite identical to the parent's story, but this is a reasonably close match: http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Wireless/11099.html [mybroadband.co.za]
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Funny)
Erm....
If their eyes are "lighting up" then I think they have a perfectly valid reason to sue ;)
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Informative)
The last story that they ran on here regarding EM allergies was in Africa.
I went looking around for history on this. The oldest I could find online was a 2003 case where a school in Chicago refused to use wifi because it could potentially harm students.
this story [bbc.co.uk] references Canada and the UK.
Oddly enough, I found this story [arstechnica.com] from Santa Fe (the same city as this case in this story), where Arthur Firstenberg, the leader of a group of wifi sensitives, sued the city to not allow wifi to be installed throughout the city. He lost.
Coincidentally, this came up again in January 2010 in this story [huffingtonpost.com], where Mr. Firstenberg sued his neighbor for using wifi.
And coincidentally, he's the same guy in today's article.
So, if you follow the trail back, you'll find that he's been making noise about this for a long time.
In this 2007 article [proliberty.com] is mentioned for forming the Cellular Phone Task Force
He is in the citations with:
Electromagnetic Fields, (EMF) Killing Fields," Arthur Firstenberg, The Ecologist, v. 34, n. 5, 6-10-2004.
"Radio Wave Packet," Arthur Firstenberg, Cellular Phone Task Force, Sept 2001
In 1997, his group published this mortality report [laleva.cc]. Obviously cell phones kill people. Everyone repeat after me "Correlation does not imply causation".
But hey, who am I to call a guy an attention seeking lunatic. Just because it's been spouting crap for over a decade *AND* getting published for it (drama queens love their attention), doesn't mean that he's all wrong. Talk to the guy yourself. On his site, http://www.cellphonetaskforce.org/ [cellphonetaskforce.org], he asks you to contact him. e-mail: info@cellphonetaskforce.org phone: (505) 471-0129 .
Yes, those were copy & pasted directly from his site. If he didn't want to call, he wouldn't have put the details up there.
Google phonebook reverses the number to his name [google.com].
When you call, remind him that there's electromagnetic fields around everything electrical. That includes the wires running inside the walls of his house. Yes Mr. Firstenberg, you're allergic to your own house. Run, run for the Faraday cage in the mountains. It's the only place you'll be safe. Well, kinda safe. You gotta watch out for the government using their ELF radios. I saw a X-Files once, where a guys head exploded because of ELF experiments. If it was on TV, it must be true.
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I had a neighbor worried that my HAM antenna was going to potentially give her cancer, and headaches. I simply explained that my antenna was designed not to give off radiation but to collect it from the front and then refract it backwards. She was happy with that and her headaches from the radiation that she was getting have gone away since my antenna is collecting so much of it!
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But now my head hurts, for some odd reason...
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As a licensed amateur radio operator, I've seen this phenomenon for decades.
30 years ago, a friend salvaged a 40-foot tall antenna tower, obtained the required permits to install it and did so, but he had to wait to save enough money to purchase an actual multi-band antenna to place on it. In the meantime, his neighbor hauled him into small claims court, saying this "huge antenna" was interfering with TV reception by making his television "say" things like "breaker one nine, good buddy" (ie, it was CB'ers,
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That people are interfering with your TV and/or radio in order to mess with your head, is standard paranoid delusion nr. 1. It's not just a cliche either, it really is common.
I wonder why. Maybe static and noise are especially easy for people with schizophrenia to see non-existent patterns in.
People who claim to get ill by cell phones fall in another category entirely. Sometimes it's simply a perfectly understandable stress reaction - people who literally are sick of getting calls all the time, but prefer t
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Insightful)
I disagree with your sentiment. If you publicly embarrass somebody for acting stupidly. They often think twice before acting stupidly again.
Well, you've got two problems with this disagreement.
1. People rationalize pretty much any behavior they intentionally exhibit. The most hardened of criminals in lock-up feel that they don't deserve it. What they did wasn't that wrong, or society made them do it, or they were justified because of some wrong they perceived against themselves. It's no different with this guy. What he's doing is right no matter what the judge says, what his neighbors say, what the general public says. It wouldn't be very surprising if it were shown that he deceptively uses a laptop or visual observations to know that his neighbor is using wifi or her cell phone. I'm sure he'd view these things as justified because of "what she's doing".
If I'm wrong, he should go for the Randi prize. I bet they'd agree to test him if he claimed to be sensitive to the types of EMR described in the story.
2. Many people do feed off of the negative attention. Just look at the enormous amount of effort that Slashdot editors and the moderation system go to in order to fend off the trolls. Trolls are the people that get a warm fuzzy feeling when they see someone frowning or imagine that they're frowning.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Insightful)
Being able to sense electromagnetic fields, using no devices or other assistance, in a double blind trial, would definitely be worthy of the $1,000,000 from JREF.
http://www.randi.org/site/index.php/1m-challenge.html [randi.org]
Anybody who claims to be sensitive to this sort of thing and who has not won the million bucks is basically a flat-out liar.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Funny)
Anybody who claims to be sensitive to this sort of thing and who has not won the million bucks is basically a flat-out liar.
Funny story. Once on /. someone was trying to claim that James Randi was rejecting legitimate claims of Super Powers. They of course failed miserably, but in the course of trying they linked to a randi.org forum post that simply made my day. It was the most awesome post I'd ever seen, at least on this topic.
It was a post by a man who had previously submitted an application to be tested (I think it was for EM sensitivity, but it might have been dousing or something), but -- and here's the awesome part -- he was retracting his application because he'd decided to actually conduct experiments with at least a single-blind format, and concluded based on his experiment that he didn't really have super powers.
Holy fuck. Every so often something happens that gives me a little hope for the human species.
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Being able to sense electromagnetic fields, using no devices or other assistance, in a double blind trial, would definitely be worthy of the $1,000,000 from JREF
Well, aside from the rather obvious ability to sense EM fields in the 0.5 to 0.7 nm wavelength range, I seem to recall that some radar ops in Great Britain during WW2 could tell when the beam swept past them. It was some indirect stimulation of the otic or optic nerve IIRC.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Informative)
A friend of mine could detect radar. At one point he was working on a radar unit when it was activated and he survived. After that point he claimed to be sensitive to it. The funny thing was that when driving with him he was an awesome radar detector. It was uncanny how he would say there's a cop with a radar ahead on roads he'd never been on and he'd always be right. I'm still somewhat skeptical myself though.
Define "always be right". Is that actually true, or do you simply not remember when he was wrong?
Tossing out of negative or non-noteworthy results is one of the most common forms of selection bias. Basically, only the notable events (where he was right) get remembered, while the mundane stuff (where he was wrong) gets ignored or forgotten.
For example, this sort of bias is why many people are fooled by psychics. They only remember the hits, not the misses. And what can be a "hit" is very wide indeed.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:4, Interesting)
I wouldn't categorically say all of them are morons. Assuming they aren't intentionally claiming to be sick to get their way, they might actually be sick. Sure, it might be a psychosomatic illness rather than physiological one, but either way the person is ill and needs treatment.
Also, by better separating the morons from the real cases, we can hopefully eventually perform actual research to separate any physiological cases from psychosomatic ones. Then we can hopefully cure both and put an end to cases like this.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Insightful)
That only works if the reporting is embarrassing. What tends to happen in the United States is that the reporters try to pretend that they are unbiased, and as such give equal weight to both the retarded side and the rational side - after all if there are two sides to an argument, then obviously there's a 50/50 chance that either side is true, right?
Thus, some moron like this guy and his woo-filled doctor* get put up against Dr. Bob Park, a physicist at the University of Maryland. That's not embarrassing at all; it puts these two idiots on an equal level with someone who's spent his entire career studying the subject. It's fucking flattering.
*Just because you have an MD doesn't mean you're qualified to determine whether "electrosensitivity" is a condition, no matter what the gullible reporter thinks. Do you think that a lady who pushes the always-vague "toxins" theory of chronic disease knows anything about electromagnetism beyond what she learned in Freshman physics?
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the more they'll act like morons.
I wish reporters wouldn't give this type of crap the time of day.
Not to defend Arthur The Human Antenna Firstenberg, but perhaps he is suffering from some sort of mental condition and genuinely believes what he is claiming? It doesn't make him right, and may only prove he's watched "Cartman Gets an Anal Probe" [wikipedia.org] too many times, but he might only be a mental case and not an asshat.
Never attribute to asshattery that which can be adequately explained by shit house rat crazy.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Insightful)
Just give the idiot plaintiff a double blind test, and we can move on with our lives.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Insightful)
And what about the poor person who is actually suffering because of this idiot? You don't think the plight of this person should be made known to the world?
My wife was sued last year for a completely stupid reason, and one of the worst parts of the experience for me was knowing that we were getting screwed and nobody in the world gave a crap about it.
Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:5, Funny)
Just kidding, I'm sure no one would be stupid enough to claim that a certain frequency of light caused them physical problems, unless of course it really did... [thefreedictionary.com]
Great. Just when I was about to paint my house ultraviolet you came along and ruined it. Thanks.
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Re:the more attention you give morons... (Score:4, Informative)
Context for the Africa comment:
http://mybroadband.co.za/news/Wireless/11099.html [mybroadband.co.za]
A community sues iBurst because they claim their tower was making them sick. iBurst reveals that the tower wasn't even on.
Ugh (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Ugh (Score:4, Insightful)
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This is case were there is no evidence that the plaintiff's claims or medical affliction have any basis in reality.
No, SCO had *no* evidence. They were given *everything* they asked for, every single benefit of every doubt, and they came up with no more that this guy's case - basically Darl's claim that "we *must* own the copyrights!"
The only difference is the this guy probably honestly believes he's being affected, whereas SCO knew that they had no case.
Re:Ugh (Score:4, Informative)
Only the judge can rule the case frivolous. Thus it has to "make it to the courtroom" though there need not be any trial. The preliminary injunction has already been denied. Hopefully the motion for dismissal will be granted and the defendant will be awarded costs and fees. That is the proper way to handle frivolous suits.
Picture in the summary has it right (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the guy's problem, not his neighbour's. If he's got a sensitivity to it, he should don a tinfoil hat and live inside a Faraday cage.
I developed lactose intolerance late in my life. Should I sue the makers of all my favourite foods because they can't accomodate me?
Re:Picture in the summary has it right (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you in America and seeking large sums of money for no real cause?
Re:Picture in the summary has it right (Score:5, Insightful)
Are the dairies pouring the milk into your house and forcing you to drink it?
Not that I think this case has any merit, but your analogy doesn't match up – if this guys claims were actually true, then his neighbour would be actively doing something that was harming him, not just passively sitting there holding something that could harm him if it were used against him.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
A more apt analogy would be somebody who develops extreme sun sensitivity late in life, and then attempts to sue the sun.
And as much as I'd like to believe this is a really, really stupid example, I somehow can not completely discount the possibility of this happening someday, somewhere.
Re:Picture in the summary has it right (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Picture in the summary has it right (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm impressed. There are so many solid arguments against those who claim sensitivity to consumer electronics, I didn't think anyone could possibly come forward asserting such a poor one as yours.
If you tried to apply your "lactose intolerant" analogy, don't you suppose your opponent would point out that the makers of your favorite foods don't project those foods into your home against your wishes?
If these sensitivities were real (though I very much doubt that they are), he would have a point. Just because something has become socially common doesn't mean it's ok to do if it later turns out that it harms others in their own home. The key phrase is if they were real; so this point is moot unless someone can show some credible scientific basis for anything beyond the psychosomatic.
I don't know if this guy really believes he's sensitive or if he's just a complete asshat. It sure looks like he figured he saw a way to make a quick buck by convincing someone he knew uses electronics to move in to the next house over.
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If these sensitivities were real (though I very much doubt that they are), he would have a point. Just because something has become socially common doesn't mean it's ok to do if it later turns out that it harms others in their own home.
Er, no offense, but no he wouldn't. He'd have a sensitivity that it would be incumbent upon him to solve. Otherwise what's to stop him from moving into an apartment in the center of a city and demanding that everyone in the building stop using electronics? He's welcome to retrofit his home to make it a Faraday cage if he wishes, but he has no right to restrict the law-abiding behavior of his neighbor in *her* home just because he's (supposedly) a genetic freak who can sense EMF radiation.
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Mmmm... it's not that easy. When I play loud music past 3am I can't simply say that my neighbor should get some earplugs if he wants to sleep.
There's always (at least here, your country may vary) the question of reasonability. It's reasonable that I do not listen to loud music at 3am, at least more reasonable than to ask my neighbor to wear earplugs. It's not reasonable to ask the maker of your food to bend to your whim when the rest of his millions of customers are happy with the way it is.
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At 3am I can't hear nothing, my music is way too loud.
At least... (Score:2)
...we can hope that this will set a precedent. (Though it will probably just be dismissed.)
Re:At least... (Score:5, Funny)
Even if it makes it to court the guy won't. I'll be there with a grid of routers, cell phones and all type of other EM emitting radiation devices.
Onus is on you... (Score:2)
Lucky for him (Score:5, Funny)
Sounds like time for a countersuit (Score:2)
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The waves are everywhere! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The waves are everywhere! (Score:4, Funny)
>>>Ok people, do you have any CLUE how many radio waves are going through your body at any given time?
I'm being irradiated right now.
By my CRT.
Tuned to playboy.
It tingles.
Re:The waves are everywhere! (Score:5, Funny)
No they don't. Most people are horribly undereducated about the world around them. I blame High Fructose Corn syrup consumption.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
GPS's, Cell Phones, Watches
Years ago working in a lab, after doing an experiment involving radioisotopes, I was doing a routine scan of my work area. My co-worker's hand was coming up hot. She took off her gloves and scanned again, still hot. Not just barely either, this was tipping our counter way past its max sensitivity. She scrubber her hands and it wouldn't go away. It took us a few minutes to realize... it was her watch. Apparently the glow on the hands is some kind of uranium or something.
What's interesting is that the
Homeowner? His responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
If he is a homeowner, how he protects himself from his surrounding environment is his responsibility. If he really believes he is being made sick by electro-magnetic energies around him maybe he needs to wrap his house in a Faraday cage and shut the hell up.
You can't sue your neighbor when their cherry tree blooms and sets off your allergies. Same thing.
Re:Homeowner? His responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
For that to work, he'd have to believe that Faraday cages work.
Since he clearly has no truck with science, why would he believe that?
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no no.
You can cut down your cherry tree.
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Good point. What does the law say about the division of responsibility in cases like this?
I.e., if I have a tree that you're allergic to, do you have to suck it up, or to I have to deal with it? Is it based on some under-defined notion of "reasonable" accommodation?
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I can honestly say this is the first time I've ever observed walnut-car anger.
So presumably a lawyer took this case (Score:5, Interesting)
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They can. It only happens in egregious cases like Jack Thompson unfortunately. The garden-variety ambulance chaser still has a career to look forward to.
Mercy (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect that the plaintiff is suffering from some significant mental health issues. Maybe paranoia or hypochondria or something. My guess is that this guy isn't suing because he's a jerk, but because he thinks the issue is real.
Hopefully the suit will be dismissed with a minimum of fuss and expense, and the guy can get the help he probably needs.
Re:Mercy (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the guy is simply a jerk. He knew before she even moved in that she uses these devices. He's trying to cash in and from reading the article this women is too afraid to even leave her house because of this dick and his friend.
From the article..
Re:Mercy (Score:4, Interesting)
Be careful when saying things like "mental illness is as real as any physical illness". In order to equate mental illness with physical illness, you must equate imagination with reality. If I imagine my arm is broken, that doesn't make it physically broken. If I imagine I have a brain tumor, that doesn't mean I have a brain tumor.
But, if I imagine I feel pain, then that might be equal to "actually" feeling pain, since pain is an imaginary symptom (occurring literally only in your head).
So, it's true in some ways, and untrue in other ways. Just make sure to be clear on what you mean.
Voodoo (Score:2)
Hmm. So I guess that instead of pins, stick your Firstenberg (plaintiff) voodoo doll in the microwave.
And yes, there have been cases of people being sued for practicing voodoo and placing curses on others.
She should have turned-off the devices (Score:5, Insightful)
...without telling the Moron, and then let the moron keep insisting "your wireless makes me sick". It would be funny. Especially in court.
Re:She should have turned-off the devices (Score:4, Insightful)
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I don't doubt that he uses a laptop or other wifi detecting device to know that his neighbor has wifi. He probably saw her using her iPhone and it made him feel sick. He has problems, but it's doubtful that the EMR is the direct source of them.
Re:She should have turned-off the devices (Score:4, Insightful)
He probably saw her using her iPhone and it made him feel sick.
I have the same problem... but only when I see them texting while driving at 90.
Human interest filler story (Score:2)
Let's see, we are reading a generically syndicated human interest filler story from Santa Fe, New Mexico that was published in the Chicago Tribune two days ago.
This isn't the New York Times. It's pure silliness used to fill white space in newsprint as our other posters have agreed.
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This isn't the New York Times.
So, there is at least a chance that it is true.
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Um... (Score:2)
If he truly had an EM sensitivity, the odds of it existing on a higher wavelength(like 2.4Ghz) than visible light and on the lower wavelengths(like UV which affects everyone) are incredibly low without visible light affecting him as well. If visible light did affect him as well I think it would be very hard for a successful
Re:Um... (Score:4, Informative)
My dad actually presided an arbitration over a complaint against a cell tower, the complaint was of course about the electromagnetic field and how they have a negative impact on the people. The main complainant presented his case, lamented for nearly 15 minutes (he has to be given the time, no matter what, part of the procedure, even though my dad really wanted to interrupt...), when he ended the rest of the arbitration consisted of:
Dad: What's that in your breast pocket?
Complainant: My cellphone.
Dad: Complaint rejected. My advice is to get a book about basic physics, read the part about electromagnetism and how distance affects fields and their strength.
The hard part was to get the recorder to strike that last part from the record...
I know that case pretty well, my dad always uses it as the perfect example why you have to know more than just your field of study, him only knowing law and not physics would not have ended this case so quickly. And it's a good example how hysteria often replaces rational thinking, especially when people feel ill for some reason and grasp for straws in their quest to find a culprit.
I think I have a solution (Score:5, Funny)
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Follow me here: The average household is somewhere around 2400 square feet. Let's assume for simplicity sake that it's a box measuring 49'x49'x10'. That makes for about 6800 square feet of interior surface area. The skin depth for gold at 2.4 GHz is pretty close to 200nm, but to be sure that the vast majority of the signal is stopped lets assume a coating of 1um thickness. 6800 square feet multiplied by 1um yields a volume of about 6e-4 m^3 of gold. Multiplying this by the density of gold (~20gm/cm^3) yields about 12 kilograms of gold. The last time I checked, gold was something close to $1200 dollars an ounce, which works out to be about $508k. So all the guy really wants to do is use the settlement money to WiFi proof his house. And have a gold plated interior. And a little bit left over for hookers and blow.
Bender: Ahh, screw the gold plated interior. And the blow.
Basic Human Rights? (Score:2)
From the summary:
"I feel as if my life and liberty are under attack for no valid reason, and it has forced me to have to defend my very basic human rights."'"
Ok, so the guy filing the suit is a moron and the suit has no technical merit at all. But really? Running a router is now a basic human right? A little melodramatic don't you think?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The actions of one inside one's house and freedom of movement and ability to do what you want within the law? That's not freedom? That wouldn't fall under their human rights? Seriously?
Unless you think just food is a human right. Then I think you would be OK with people going and stealing food because they have a right to not starve. Certain rights have implications beyond the obvious.
Re:Basic Human Rights? (Score:4, Insightful)
From the summary:
"I feel as if my life and liberty are under attack for no valid reason, and it has forced me to have to defend my very basic human rights."'"
Ok, so the guy filing the suit is a moron and the suit has no technical merit at all. But really? Running a router is now a basic human right? A little melodramatic don't you think?
Well, some places are declaring Internet access a human right...
But I don't think that's really the point.
Generally speaking, you're allowed to do what you want within the confines of your own house. Of course you still can't murder people and whatnot... But it's a little unusual for your neighbors to be able to dictate what kind of telephone you use, and whether your Internet connection is wired or wireless, or whether you can own or use a cell phone. Those are all liberties that we pretty much take for granted.
Re: (Score:2)
but a basic human right might be having the freedom to do whatever you want on your own property if it is not hurting anyone else.
How to tell if he's a liar (Score:5, Insightful)
2) Place a chair at the opposite end of the room.
3) Have this guy sit in the chair for an hour.
4) See how much he complains about headaches, how much he acts up, how he has been brain-poisoned etc.
5) Show him that the dish is not connected to anything, and never has been.
If he doesn't react, affix it to a signal generator and see how he performs in an actual scientifically conducted test. But do it my way first, then make it into an amusing video montage so everyone knows how much of a tool he is.
Send that guy over here (Score:3, Funny)
I have a few powerful crystals that absorb electrosmog here for sale. I also sell Bach-flower tinctures that strengthen you against the onslaught of those waves.
And if you buy that, I also have a beautiful bridge with a top notch view on SF for sale...
Can you even sue your neighbor for this stuff? (Score:2)
Can you successfully sue your neighbor for other types of activities that cross the border between the properties? If you cook with some strong stuff (curries, bbq, peanuts) and the fumes from these foods makes him sick, can he actually win against you?
Against something that's government sanctioned? (Score:5, Insightful)
The devices in question are already approved by the Federal government for use in residential settings.
That more than likely trumps any claims by this nutcase*.
It will be up to the nutcase* himself to insulate or shield the interior of his home.
Think about it - if instead of electromagnetic sensitivity he thought he had car sensitivity - cars driving by his house made him sick. He'd want to stop people from driving on the street, but that's another government sanctioned activity that no court would let him impose restrictions on.
*nutcase - someone with a psychological disorder that they think is caused by something external, instead of the truth which is that he's got too much time on his hands. He should really buy an old mine and live underground if he wants to avoid RF.
courthouse (Score:3, Funny)
Old News (Score:3, Informative)
Why is anyone even paying attention to him and his absurd claims?
Re:In this litigious society... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In this litigious society... (Score:5, Funny)
I'm going to sue you for insulting all of us insensitive clods, you insensitive clod!
Re:In this litigious society... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In this litigious society... (Score:5, Insightful)
"And, I'm sorry to say, probably win."*
*Citation needed
Just because you're jaded doesn't mean reality matches your view.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
He wasn't specific to who won. Someone always wins, and someone always loses. It never ends with "they hugged, made up, and went home." :)
Well it does occasionally end like that. Especially when it's a mother suing her daughter on Judge Judy.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Have you considered that what you're experiencing might be due to high frequency sound instead of EM radiation? There's a lot more evidence for that at least, and it's the only thing that could set the telco base station different from wifi. There is absolutely jack and shit for evidence that people can feel normal radio and other communications-style radiation.
The guy is not right. Period, end of story. And if you think he is, perhaps you should go talk to your doctor about the possibility of you suffering
Re:it's not so funny (Score:5, Insightful)
...when you are the victim. Don't know for an Wireless AP but I go real headaches from a telco's base station. It was as close as 70 meters from my appartment and although it was 4 storeys higher than my home it still made me sick. And the most interesting part: while climbing the stairs to my appartment going through the floors when I was getting near my floor the nasty sensation was setting off. So the guy may be in his right. All he did was to buy a house and then waited till somebody started making him sick. Why don't you look from the other side - make the lady put her house in a Faraday cage if she insist on her wireless?
Where's the control in your experiment? How do you know that it was the tower and not, say, the ultrasonic pest repellent devices that your landlord had installed on your floor? Or any of a half dozen frequently used but kind of nasty chemicals that are routinely found in apartment buildings? Or the flickering old-style fluorescent lights? Frankly, the fact that the sensation wasn't worse OUTSIDE when the building isn't shielding you from what sounds like line-of-sight irradiation makes me dubious that the source of your headaches have been properly isolated.
Or, you're trolling, and I fell for it.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
If i can believe my TV, really strange things seems to happen all the time on islands...
Re:use UTP then (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm sorry... UTP is not the answer. The answer is to tell this guy to go fuck himself. I'm not responsible for changing my behavior because some other nutbar has a psychosomatic illness. That's for him and his doctors to deal with. Not me and his lawyers.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
being able to sit my laptop on the counter without worrying about tripping over a cable is worth more than the crazy demands of a delusional hypochondriac.
Good neighbours put up their own EM shielding when they suffer from imaginary conditions.