Editor’s note: Youth interviewed for this story are referred to only by their first names due to privacy concerns.
Students and community members are calling attention to the recently installed noise machine at Crossroads Park in Bellevue. They say the device, which is intended to discourage vandalism of park bathrooms at night, is an example of hostile architecture and disproportionately impacts young people and unhoused Bellevue residents.
The park is a popular hangout space for young people, situated close to the offices of several social service organizations, the Bellevue Youth Theatre and a nearby mall. It is also a community hub with weekly distributions of food, clothes and other supplies by volunteer mutual aid groups. Kimaya Mahajan, a Bellevue-based community organizer, said although Bellevue has a reputation for affluence, there are pockets that are less privileged.
“Within Bellevue, Crossroads is one of the most densely populated parts of the city and also one of the most diverse and lowest income,” Mahajan said. “The majority of Bellevue’s Section 8 housing is all in this area. I think the statistic is something like 60% non-white.”
Around May, Mahajan said community members started to hear an irritating, high-pitched buzzing sound, resembling the hum of high-voltage power lines. At first, they did not know where it was coming from, but soon they located a device inside the men’s bathroom.
The noise machine, known as the “Mosquito Device,” is activated nightly after the park and its bathrooms close. Mahajan said that while in use, the machine could be heard as far as approximately 50 yards away.
The Mosquito Device is manufactured by the company Moving Sound Technologies and is marketed as a non-confrontational, anti-loitering deterrent. According to Christina Faine, a spokesperson for Bellevue Parks and Community Services (BPCS), the city installed the device after the bathrooms were vandalized in January 2024, causing $17,000 in damages. Faine said the city had installed a Mosquito Device at the restrooms of the nearby Larsen Lake park two years ago.
In an email to Real Change, Faine said the city of Bellevue purchased the Crossroads Park device at a cost of $1,315. She added that the goal of the city was to ensure the restrooms remain operational, citing the device as a more effective way to prevent vandalism than increasing police patrols.
“We want our parks to be safe and welcoming for all members of our community, including young people,” Faine wrote. “We are committed to ensuring park facilities are operational and available for the public during their hours of operation.”
However, some community members disagreed that the Mosquito Device was the best solution to deterring vandalism. On July 11, the group Crossroads Food Not Bombs launched a Change.org petition calling on the city to “stop the noise.” Bellevue Student Union, a grassroots organization of high school students formed in February, has promoted and endorsed the campaign. To date, the petition has received almost 300 signatures. Youth activists and their allies have testified against the noise machines at Bellevue City Council meetings.
Bellevue Student Union member Crystal said she’d rather the city spend money on supportive services for youth than installing the Mosquito Device.
“[Bellevue should] invest more in school mental health services and counselors and just make Bellevue more youth-friendly instead of [being] anti-youth with the device,” Crystal said.
The Mosquito Device was first introduced by Moving Sound Technologies in 2005 and has been installed by cities, businesses and private individuals across the U.S. Several countries have taken up efforts to restrict or ban the noise machine, with a 2010 investigation by the Council of Europe recommending a ban on its usage.
In addition to warding off young people, the Mosquito Device has also been used by businesses to deter unhoused people. In June 2020, the Spokane City Council voted to prohibit businesses from using the Mosquito Device, citing effects on young and homeless residents.
Moving Sound Technologies advertises on its website an option to tune the machine to a higher-pitched mode that is designed to only affect “people 25 or younger.” Faine stated that the city has not activated this setting.
Sayaan, a Redmond high school student and member of the Bellevue Student Union, said there were significant equity issues with deployment of the Mosquito Device.
“The device feels like it’s targeting and can more negatively affect youth with mental illnesses or youth who are suffering from a lack of a safe place,” Sayaan said. “Neurodivergent folks, including myself, tend to be more sensitive to sound and sensory stimuli in general. For me, especially high-pitched noises — I can’t do it. … Thinking that little kids have to experience that, especially neurodivergent little kids, making the park inaccessible — that’s just inequitable.”
Mahajan said the devices also echo other anti-homeless policies implemented by the city of Bellevue.
“There is a history of Bellevue handling unhoused people in the area by dropping them off in Seattle … just to not have them be in the city,” Mahajan said. “A lot of it, I think, is also very much a manufactured issue that individuals in the community uphold by wanting to blame things like seeing needles on the ground on this mysterious, unseen homeless population, when really it’s actually their kids and their friends [causing it].”
For Sayaan, the noise device illustrates society’s need to rethink how it views young people’s agency and autonomy.
“Why are we trying to repel youth from being youth?” they said. “Someone in the Change.org petition was like, ‘It’s a rite of passage to run through the dark at night as a teenager.’ I’ve been to multiple parks after dark with my friends, and we’re not doing anything bad. We’re stargazing or just using the public space to hang out. I think it is disrespectful to try to prevent that from happening in a public space.”
Youth activists seem determined to continue their campaign — and it appears they are making headway. Bellevue Student Union members said that director of BPCS Michael Shiosaki, Bellevue city manager Diane Carlson and Councilmember Dave Hamilton reached out to them to set up meetings to discuss the noise machines.
This article has been updated with additional information about the “stop the noise” petition.
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