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.
A trip to Spar here in Barry confirmed the strange truth of the phenomenon…..The Mosquito is positioned just outside the door. Although this reporter could not hear anything, being too old, several young people attested to the fact that yes, there wasThe Mosquito is positioned just outside the door. Although this reporter could not hear anything, being too old, several young people attested to the fact that yes, there was a noise, and yes, it was extremely annoying.
“It’s loud and squeaky and it just goes through you,” said Jodie Evans, 15. “It gets inside you.”
And, then, you could keep old farts like me away — with a device that makes a noise like a politician running for re-election.
