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'In
the future we shall all dream of clean air and pure water--we
shall crave personal space and covert natural fibres and good
clean living--no price will be too high for a 'quiet' life.
Few of us will ever achieve this.' (Marcel d'Agneau writing in
the e-Times 2009 in response to the modern horror sweeping contemporary
cities across the world 'home rage').
The
CNN report was pretty clear. Howard Kenny of 1208 Shania Towers
on Homer Street, Vancouver had taken hostage all the occupants of
the 22nd floor of his concrete and glass tower apartment building,
then, one by one executed all of them, the children first (because
they flushed the toilets too often) and then the old, because they
shuffled up and down on the hardwood floors above his apartment
wearing hard-soled shoes. His demands were the same as the others
suffering from home rage, he wanted a 'quiet' apartment and a good
nights sleep. Howard Kenny was paying $2500 a month rent and 'he
felt entitled to not to hear someone else's shit flush inside his
walls'. The standoff lasted 26 hours.
It
was the worst case of home rage in Vancouver of the year, but not
the worst case ever. That dubious honour must go to the brothers
Kenneth and Brian Talgath of Bakerville, CA, who blew up their apartment
tower block building killing all 205 occupants after there was a
critical back up in the garburator system in their kitchen. At their
subsequent trial they were unrepentant and told the jury that "people
who flushed too often and didn't sort and recycle their garbage
properly or park their cars straight 'got what they deserved' ''.
The
common elements of those who seem to suffer from home rage seem
to be flushing toilets, (the sound of water circulating modern apartments
can be excessive), walking on hardwood floors with shoes on, loud
base on stereo systems, (which concrete appears to be a particularly
suitable transmitter to other parts of tower blocks), garbage collection,
cooking fumes and elevator malfunctions.
Dr
K. Awning of Utah State University states that noise and cooking
fumes are only a contributory factor to home rage, far more important
is fibre degradation in the carpets and curtains in tower blocks.
Most new apartment blocks have central air conditioning and heating
and although there may be hardwood floors in the living rooms, most
bedrooms and bathrooms and corridors have carpeting installed and
this is, in the main, 100 percent man-made. Fibre depletion from
these carpets, combined with air-conditioning in closed environments,
some fifty-sixty floors high, are showing a high density of microscopic
acrylic and polymer fibre particulates, that can literally set of
a toxic reaction that trigger psychotic episodes. Evidence produced
by his research is now being used by lawyers for the defence of
those accused of home rage or Defensible Space Syndrome Psychosis
(DSSP).
New
legislation outlawing the use of man-made fibres in enclosed environments
will help, but the cost of removing and disposing of this dangerous
toxic material from all the buildings in the United States and Canada
will be 8 times more expensive than the total costs of removing
asbestos. The chemical companies who manufacture carpeting have
already taken precautions behind Chapter 11 pre-emptive action,
hoping to limit their exposure to mounting legislation and lawsuits.
It is estimated that they are liable to more than a $1000 billion
in claims against them and there is little chance that they will
pay out anything at all. All man-made fibre flooring manufacture
in the USA has ceased and new companies are wary of producing wool
carpets for fear of legislation against the use of animal by-products
in manufacturing. There is a national shortage of flooring material
and in winter homes can be cold. Emergency action is being taken
to offer straw matting to those with inadequately heated homes,
but these in turn have their own problems, releasing natural fibre
particles that can be lethal to asthma sufferers as they degrade
with use.
The
generally toxic atmosphere of enclosed tower dwellings, the plummeting
real estate values of these (mainly city buildings) and the default
of the E-Bank of Montreal and many US Banks that have financed many
of the most recent projects has signalled a sea-change in living
and investing plans. The legacy of the boom years of the late 90's
and early 2000's has left its mark in the estimated repair bills
for shoddily built condominiums and tower blocks. Leaking roofs,
inadequate plumbing, sewage back-ups with their consequent unpleasant
floodings and rising heating bills have left some 30 percent of
the entire home-owning North American/Canadian population in negative
equity as home values fall in apartments and condos. The Federal
and State Governments have refused to intervene, claiming that those
without inadequate insurance 'should have known better' and instead
placed the onus on leaseholders and owners to repair their homes
to habitable standards and indeed upped the ante with the new 2010
Building Sound Pollution Codes that are retrospective and apply
to all buildings. The new regulations state, that each dwelling,
whether situated in a tower block or condominium, should be free
of external sounds: which include plumbing, heating, music and vibration.
No neighbour's sound is allowed to penetrate another within six
inches of internal walls. Sound pollution is number one on the pollsters'
lists of modern irritations and politicians have acted. There are
swingeing fines for those unable to comply. "We aim to stamp out
the causes for home rage and make it a right for every citizen to
live a quiet life', Senator Jones of New Jersey stated after Atlantic
City was hit by a spate of killings over 'loud neighbours'.
Technology
is available to those who can afford it. Sound inversion wall screens
are on sale. These take the noises generated inside apartments and
render them negative. The technology was first perfect in automobiles
using NeXt® technology. But for many, the cost of covering and operating
these whole wall screens is beyond their means and there are questions
about the long-term safety of living within the electronic field
they generate.
The
Sound Codes of 2010 compliment the Odour Codes of 2005, which were
a response to popular calls for the prohibition of scented deodorants
and shampoos, laundry detergents, soaps and perfumes in North America.
This followed a fanatical surge of protest from career radicals
who had such success with removing cigarettes and cell phones from
the public spaces, restaurants and bars throughout North America
and Canada. They moved on to scent, the personal space and the problems
of scented washrooms. Particular wrath was for companies that manufactured
chemicals that made urinals smell like strawberry. The owner and
distributor of "SweetChem was gunned down in a Chicago men's room
by someone from Zero-T, the organisation for a natural environment.
Invasive chemical pollution was their prime target. "No scent makes
Sense".
It
followed that the logical development of a need for organic food
also meant that human habitation should also be free of scented
pollutants to preserve the human experience in a natural world.
Assaults in public places have fallen some estimated 45% since the
Odour Ban was enacted and the abolition of sugar and sodas in schools
initiative of 2006. Although Coca-Cola and PepsiCo made bitter protestations,
the definitive link between violence in schools and ADT syndrome
was made between sodas with a high sugar content and anti-social
behaviour. Removing soda machines from school and colleges and government
buildings has more than halved school behaviour problems and improved
worker/staff relationships in the work place. Although there is
no scientific proof and the soda manufactures are appealing, the
longer they are out of schools, the better and more reliable the
evidence is.
(It
is fair to point out that the thousands of layoffs and bankruptcies
that have occurred in the scent and soda-manufacturing industry
worldwide has brought economic hardship to many in Europe and those
reliant on bottling plants around the world. But as the unregulated
Chinese market expands, many companies have redoubled their efforts
to sell into that market and it is believed that global soda sales
and body care products are actually up on five years ago)
Once
scent began to disappear from North American shelves, it was logical
that protesters would move on to 'sound' as the next battleground.
It may have begun with attacking people with cell phones, demanding
no ring tone phones and designated cell phone speaking places in
sound proofed areas, but it rapidly moved on to sound pollution
in homes and the work place. Political activism for personal private
space had become the rallying call for thousands of environmentalists
and it was a growing global trend. They were helped by a long term
health study published in Finland in 2007 which revealed incidences
of brain tumours in the age groups 10-30 had risen 300 percent since
2001 and were rising monthly. Finland being one of the first countries
to reach saturation with mobile phones was now the leading recorded
sufferer of head tissue tumours and brain damage. Source: The Lancet
2008, October Issue. Oddly enough, people did not stop using their
phones.
E-Scientific-American
2009--Jan issue editorial:
'It
is recognised now that with microwave technology being embedded
across all of Europe and North American continent, we have 'experimented'
on whole populations and exposed them to a potential long term health
hazard that could affect millions. But abandoning the concept of
mobile technology now and going back to fixed point contacts for
communication, banking and shopping would be tantamount to asking
people to do without electricity. Although many are aware of the
risks, many, just like smokers before them who ignored the warnings
on the pack about lung disease, are now willing to risk their brains
for the convenience of cell mobile technology.' (Comments from Motorola
and Nokia lawyers were not forthcoming for this article at the time
of writing).
We
are on the cusp of a huge transition in the way we live. From assaults
to our brains, to the very food we eat, the carpets we walk on,
everything that we thought made life better has turned out to be
lethally bad for us and we have to change. Legislation in over 20
states has already seen plastic containers being banned for food
or milk. Glass is making a comeback all over the western world.
Traditional methods are returning in country after country. Everywhere
people are taking up new skills in woodcrafts and glass technology,
organic farming and the arts. The reintroduction of mailmen has
been as a direct result of an upsurge of people once again using
paper to write their correspondence on (perhaps influenced by the
preponderance of employers to hire staff and software to scan emails
at work). Privacy and pride in ones work is leading this revolution.
Convenience has led us to this endgame. It began with fast food
and ends with colon cancer. We demanded and got instant everything
and now we realise the price we paid was with our lives.
According
to Deke Maynard, the psychologist and journalist for www.e-shrinks.com
'We are in a process of unravelling the entire chemical and electronic
invasion of the human experience, taking the high road back to a
natural, more sustainable ecological and organic way of living.
In a hundred years of so-called 'progress', we lost touch with taste,
flavour, and our very senses and surrounded ourselves with hazardous,
ultimately lethal substances. It will be painful to go back, expensive,
but to sleep, walk, communicate and eat in safety, it is necessary
that we tear down a century of mistakes and wrong turns. Many say
that the modern economy will collapse, that we are totally dependent
upon chemicals, oil derivatives, mobile e-technology and mass production,
but this is not so. Now we have mass consumption, this is a market
made up of individuals who demand choice and quality and a safe
environment. The result will be a safer, less aggressive world.
The market will respond. Indeed there are those who can see profit
in doing so. We must turn around now, if we are to give something
to the next generation, we have to take a stand now and demand the
real thing and if it takes a little longer than it used to, then
perhaps we will come to appreciate it all a little more."
Some
say we are turning the tide--that the revolt has peaked and we will
learn to live with the new rules, but now the radicals are turning
their attention to yet another frontier and it is possible that
visual affronts will be the next pressure point. Already an aesthetics
lobby in Washington D.C. has called for the demolition of unsightly
buildings in the USA and drawn up a list is 'unacceptably ugly buildings'.
A group calling itself 'Houseproud' has threatened to demolish key
buildings themselves, without warning, unless their demands are
met.
We
will greet 2011 with interest and trepidation. If the future began
in 1900 it has taken us this long to listen to grandma when she
used to say 'The old ways are best.'
Copyright
© 2000 Sam
North All Rights Reserved
Sam
North is the Managing Editor of www.hackwriters.com
a monthly culture e-zine. He is a future resident of Vancouver,
British Columbia.
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