Photo Illustration: Everett Bogue; Photos: Hulton
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So in an attempt to rid the outside and stairwells of the apartment building he manages of the pesky teens who hang out there, last week Sean Mann of Jamaica, Queens, became the first person in New York to install a device known as the Mosquito. A small wall-mounted box that emits a high-pitched screech only audible to people in their teens and early twenties, the Mosquito was created in Britain to deter teen loiterers, and so far, it seems to work. “It’s obnoxious, high-pitched and painful,” 19-year-old Kristin Hankins told the Post, when they tried it out in Washington Square Park the other day. Weird. While we’re not too bothered that someone has devised a way to shut up teenagers, what if this is merely the beginning?
First they’ll start using it in schools to quell complaints about the Presidential Fitness exam. Then a mad man will discover a way to change it so that it can be heard by all humans. He’ll mount it on a truck and drag it through the streets of New York, laughing maniacally as helpless citizens scatter to avoid the horrible shriek. This man will call himself The Mosquito, and as New York becomes a bleak dystopia (because for some reason the device will also disable all machines), the police will become powerless and forced to name The Mosquito mayor for life. Yeah, that would be horrible. In reality, though, the Mosquito is just kind of a nuisance and wouldn’t even stop anyone from loitering in a particular spot if he was somewhat determined to stay, such as one youngster at Mann’s building, who told WCBS that the device “doesn’t bother me,” and another said it bothered him “a little bit.” —Dan Amira
