Portland 7-Eleven Keeps Homeless People Away With High-Pitched Sound

Source: SOPA Images / Getty

Many People Are Divided Over The Harsh Move

One 7-Eleven in Oregon is doing the absolute most to keep homeless people away from their establishment.

According to New York Daily News, a Portland 7-Eleven installed a high-pitched squealing sound to keep homeless people away.

The downtown location has had trouble with panhandlers and vagrants. Thus, the building’s landlord thought it would be a good idea to install a speaker that blasts an obnoxious sound anytime loiterers kept loitering.

Many passer-byers aren’t feeling the approach.

“It kind of makes my jaw hurt,” Portland resident Brook Barrett said outside the buzzing corner spot. “It’s really a high-pitched sound that’s really annoying.”

Another unnamed store regular said the sound was problematic, but he agrees that the area has a vagrancy issue. “It feels offensive slightly because I don’t think you should treat people like insects, but something has got to be done,” that customer said.

The building landlord said he was trying to address a bigger problem for business. “Our goal is to protect the safety of our employees, tenants and guests in a location that has been consistently plagued by public drug use and menacing behavior,” he said in a statement to NBC. “The sound is a safe tool to help address the problems that have persisted at that location.”

A 2014 local Fox station reported a similar approach outside a 7-Eleven in Sacramento, California. Customers and pedestrians were divided on whether they preferred the buzzing sound or the panhandlers it was meant to keep away.

Whatever the solution might be, annoying everyone with an obnoxious sound doesn’t seem like the jackpot.

But tis America.

Better to render the vagrants invisible rather than address the larger issue of homelessness.

What do you think of the Portland 7-Eleven’s approach?

Too much or straight brilliance?