wifi electromagnatic waves of death!!

[Grizzly Adams]

I'm going to ask this on the New Scientist last word page, but thought I'd post it here as well... See what you think.

I currently live in a shared house, with the landlady living in the side annex of the property. All bills are included so everything is set-up for everyday life. This includes the broadband wifi which is hers and provided to us as agreed when we moved in.

The other day my housemates and I all received an email which included the following.

"Different individuals have different levels of sensitivity to electromagnetic waves, and mine is very high.
Whilst I am renting rooms in my home to help with me financially, I cannot allow it affect my physical health. Therefore I am proposing that the internet is switched off every night from 11 p.m. - 8 a.m."

I replied with some solutions such as network cabling, and moving the modem. I aslo explained that not having use of the net would be bad for my job. This was the reply.

"This particular wifi unit's electromagnetic waves have a range of 30 - 50 meters, and clearly the closer you are to it, the worse it is. Moving the unit, 2 meters into the hallway or elsewhere on the downstairs area is not going to make any difference to its range. Additionally, your room being adjacent to my part of the house, means when your unit is receiving electromagnetic waves, I am getting the very same amount of waves constantly. And this is not acceptable to me, having seen my sleep/health deteriorate over the last 6 months. I do not see it justifiable to go through the expense/hassle of hardwiring internet into every room - this was not part of the 'package' of living in this house. The wiring will be ugly, and the basic problem is still there - when the internet is on, the electromagnetic
waves are still there. In addition, there are 5 mobile phones on the house constantly, which have the same powerful affect as the internet only worse.
This I cannot object to, but the internet is a different matter.
This is a 'residential' space, and not for the purpose of working (except for me of course, and I keep very normal office hours). So any issues you may have regarding being unable to work from home, is not my concern.
We are sharing a 'living' space - we must therefore stick to the 'normal hours' of activity FOR EVERYONE ( that includes me) most reasonably being between 8 am - 11 pm."

I would like to be able to continue normal life, which includes using the internet post 11pm and pre 8am. Originally I had her wifi fear down as one of her oddities, like her being "able to communicate with animals" or her family members going to the toilet right outside our kitchen window, but unlike those other issues this one will actually have a negative affect my working life.

I shall obviously be leaving as soon as I can but in the meantime I would still like to settle this once and for all. Please let me know if there are issues with wifi and health, including any useful references where possible.

I'm firstly planning to explain to the idiot how damn stupid she is, and I'm going to post regular updates of her emails, notes and behaviour in the local shop window.

[Commanche]

I saw a good article on some people who were moved into a house next to a mobile phone mast, given a list of potential side-effects of being near the mast and then told to live there for a week. The mast wasn't turned on and a load of them reported the symptoms. They then turned the mast on and none of the non-hypochondriacs complained.

I think that she is basically paranoid because she has heard something about it and is making her own health fail with worry. Unfortunately I think that you are a bit screwed as you'll never be able to persuade her because the studies are all really shit and flawed.

The only thing I think you can do is explain that Mobile phones produce more EM as they have to communicate of 100s of metres rather then just 50, radio waves and other EM radiation is still pouring through the house and turning off the WiFi will not cause her situation to improve in an urban area where there are a number of EM sources that aren't under her control. Also being unable to complain about the mobile phones but still complaining over the internet WiFi is unreasonable, especially when there are options for cabling which aren't just spaghetti stringing around the house. You'll either get her to relent or she'll try to cut off mobiles too or she'll sell the house and move to the country, incidentally kicking you all out...

[Lucid]

Tell her to wear a tinfoil hat if she is that worried

[Hebe]

if she want to sleep in safety. I recommend her to build farady cage .

[Cy]

i agree with comm, and ur landlady is a bit nuts... i think you're screwed tho, u put up a good argument but she's probably right about the whole working from home thing... then again i guess it depends on what your lease says about this.

one thing though, how will she know if ur wifi is off? is it just because she uses it also and she is going to turn it off?  otherwise i'd say just keep it on and say u turned it off.... lock her MAC address out after a certain hour and disable publishing the SSID for the network, she probably wouldn't know then unless she's at all technical which i doubt.

your other option is to get some homeplug's... they are adapters that plug into your power sockets, and an ethernet cable goes into them.... so there is no more wiring, and your network can run through your powerlines to wherever else you have a homeplug plugged in... you can probably buy some off komplett or dabs or wherever.

sounds like she's being a bit of a bitch tho, to make a point you should ask your neigbour to host ur wireless router and put an amplifier on it so its more powerful

[Commanche]

I assumed that she has the router in her room. Hence the option to move it. I was going to suggest homeplugs but I wasn't entirely sure how they work and it sounds like she believes that the internet is the thing that produces the radiation...

when the internet is on, the electromagnetic waves are still there.

I lol'd

[Cy]

just tell her that she needs to be reasonable, otherwise you will buy your own mobile broadband pack... maybe one of those shit USB ones that the likes of Vodafone O2, and 3 sell... they use 3G so they'd likely cause a lot more radiation

i dont know how she can say it is affecting her health tho, afaik there has been no clear evidence to say that this stuff is bad for your health.  faraday cage around her bed is best bet

[xen]

ul grizz, I don't think there is much you can do with someone that stupid. Maybe you could open up the router and disconnect the lights so it always looks like it's off when she looks at it. If she askes why it's off all the time just say you feel your health is so much better, like your a new man  . She seems like she is just being a bitch though by shooting down all your very reasonable suggestions.

[Grizzly Adams]

I'll suggest the wall plug thing to my housemates. It sounds like a cool thing to have anyway.

Yup, she's a total fruitcake.. and I'm outta there at the end of the month. She unpluggs the powerlead from the modem when she doesn't want us using it!

Its meant to be an bills all included rental.. which included the wifi. Afaict she's kinda breaking the agreement we made when I moved in, but I probabaly can't dispute this.

But here's where I can win. I withheld my rent so she gets all formally legal and patronising explaining what a deposit is and isn't. I just replied asking how is she protecting my deposit.
She tells me item 8 of the contract says she'll return it if she's satisfied etc etc,, and that is all the protection I need. She then added a bitchy comment on how she doesn't want me getting problematic.
So she doesn't know she's screwed herself. She's not entered my deposit into the deposit protection scheme.. and even though I asked her about protecting it still ignored me. If I take it to the county court she'll need to pay me 3 times my deposit back. Which is 700x3! Haha. I damn tempted to do this just because she's made it as uncomfortable there as possible.
Besides 2100 would get me a ps3!

[Commanche]

Besides 2100 would get me a ps3!

Or 7...

[MaxBonus]

I'll suggest the wall plug thing to my housemates. It sounds like a cool thing to have anyway.

Yup, she's a total fruitcake.. and I'm outta there at the end of the month. She unpluggs the powerlead from the modem when she doesn't want us using it!

Its meant to be an bills all included rental.. which included the wifi. Afaict she's kinda breaking the agreement we made when I moved in, but I probabaly can't dispute this.

But here's where I can win. I withheld my rent so she gets all formally legal and patronising explaining what a deposit is and isn't. I just replied asking how is she protecting my deposit.
She tells me item 8 of the contract says she'll return it if she's satisfied etc etc,, and that is all the protection I need. She then added a bitchy comment on how she doesn't want me getting problematic.
So she doesn't know she's screwed herself. She's not entered my deposit into the deposit protection scheme.. and even though I asked her about protecting it still ignored me. If I take it to the county court she'll need to pay me 3 times my deposit back. Which is 700x3! Haha. I damn tempted to do this just because she's made it as uncomfortable there as possible.
Besides 2100 would get me a ps3!

That bit made me LOL!
Have some karma on me

SN