RSS FeedIs Gallery Place’s Mosquito Anti-Loitering Device Working?
On approximately August 30, 2010, the owners of the Gallery Place complex installed a Mosquito anti-loitering device under the canopy of the 7th & H St NW Metro station entrance. The device emits a high pitched pulsed tone that is supposed to only be heard by young ears. Those are the same young ears that the complex owner apparently wants to encourage to move along and go about their business.
Since the device was installed, a second device has been plugged into the contraption. We’re guessing that this is some sort of timer that activates the device during specific hours. As we strolled by the location yesterday, we were not able to hear the device, although this old blogger is normally able to hear such frequencies.
It has been about 2 weeks since the device was installed and, a few WaPo and TBD articles later, we wanted to check in with the residents and see how everyone feels about the device. Is it working? Whatever the word working means to you.
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Comments
5TH and Mass, you don’t live above the GP-Chinatown metro stop, but I do and I can’t wait for the teenagers and other rowdy crowds (old or young) to go away. Street activity is a good thing for business, but loitering and screaming aren’t good for our real estate values.
Keep in mind that at one point, it was on with the frequency set to be audible by *all* patrons, not just <25yos.
It also wasn’t very loud.
Not sure what the current status is, except that when I walked by a week or so ago, I couldn’t hear anything..
Since the device was installed my experience on 7th St between F and H Sts can be summed up as follows:
1. Have I been accosted? No
2. Have I seen any teen brawls? No
3. Have I heard less profanity? Yes
4. Have I experienced theft or any other crime to my person? No
5. Do I find myself visiting stores and restaurants in that area more often? Yes
Prior to the device being installed (albeit over a longer time period) my answer to each question above would be the opposite. Would more proactive policing be a better solution? Probably, but the device is better than nothing.
I went over to check it out the first week it went up and could hear it just barely. It is (or better put, perhaps, was) set to a pulse mode…on, off, on, off…moderate in timing and the sound was both piercing and annoying. I did *not* want to be around it.
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First night it was installed, my 25 yr old ears could easily hear it. It was also the first day of school so all the teenagers were gone, and probably would have been gone anyway on that Tuesday.
That night, around 11pm, walking home from Zola, I got followed by a 35yr old creep who tried to convince me that he was rich beyond belief (and insinuated this mattered to me because I was some variety of golddigger) and wished wished wished for my favorite teen blipsters to come back. They’re usually the crowd of witnesses I felt I needed, even if they are sometimes a real clog.
Since then I’ve been waiting for them to put the alarm on a timer, so I’m glad about news of the second installation.
Overall, I’m worried it will eliminate the teens, and then things will look even worse – drug addicts over 30 are no fun and a lot of the yuppies people are home by 10pm on a weeknight.