A high-pitch tone pierced through the air in the parking lot at Home Depot in Cypress Park. The sound shrieked from six square speaker boxes set on top of lamp posts in the parking lot area under the I-5 freeway overpass. The screech sounded unpleasant in the front parking lot and excruciating under the bridge. It made it difficult to be there. Which was probably the point.
“What I feel is that it bothers me. It feels like something enters my ear, and that it can possibly be harming it–I feel a pressure,” a day laborer tells L.A. TACO. “Like, it is harmful to be here. Like, [The Home Depot] has placed an alarm to chase out the people.”
(Original Spanish: “Lo que siento es que estorba. Se hace sentir como si le entra algo adentro, y le puede dañar la sistema del oído–siento una presión,” dijo el jornalero, “Como si te va dañar estar aquí. Como si han puesto una alarma para correr la gente.”)
For the past 20 years, daylaborers and haulers, who transport materials for-hire, have frequented the Cypress Park Home Depot, using the parking lot as a space to find work, according to a daylaborer I spoke with, who wants to remain anonymous due to fear of retaliation.
“The first time, it really threw [me] for a loop, I had never heard that before,” another daylaborer says. “One of the questions I have is ‘why?’ What are they trying to do with this noise?”
(Original Spanish: “La primera vez si me saco de onda, no lo habia escuchado,” another jornalero said, “Una de las preguntas [que tengo] es para que? Que se está tratando de hacer con ese sonido?”)
Some of his colleagues have been really bothered by the noise. He says they have had to leave the parking lot area due to the sound.
“No matter what you try, the noise is in your head,” he said.
(Original Spanish: “Por mas que tratas, está en tu cabeza,” he said.)
Before the speakers were installed, people sleeping in their cars were cleared out, and even some of the daylaborers' cars were impounded, according to a daylaborer who witnessed the sweep.
As we spoke with people, a man in an orange Home Depot apron walked across the parking lot under the bridge. He seemed to be checking on things.
When asked about the recent installation of the speakers, he tells us that they were installed because customers were getting sick from birds who were nesting under the bridge, their droppings landing on the stores’ products, and supposedly leading to illness. According to the employee, at least.
These high frequency emitting speakers are called “anti-loitering speakers” or “mosquito speakers.” They emit a high pitch tone ranging from 16 to 18.5 kilohertz, according to Mosquito Loitering Solutions Ltd, a company that manufactures these types of devices.
L.A. TACO was unable to confirm if this was the company that produced the speakers in the parking lot, but they appear to be similar.
“The Mosquito Anti-Loitering Alarm uses high-frequency sounds to disperse loiterers and rough sleepers by simply annoying them,” reads the company website. “It also has an ALL-AGE setting that helps fight against rough sleeping and unwanted loitering from people of all ages.”
The company says the devices are safe to use and do not actually affect the eardrums.
“It’s a safe, humane, non-confrontational way of ensuring people don’t linger in a space you own or manage,” reads the website.
These devices have been used in areas like public parks, making it uncomfortable for unruly teenagers to gather where they weren’t supposed to by emitting noise that is audible to younger ears.
However, the frequency heard in the Home Depot parking lot is audible to people across many ages.
Dustyn Hi-8 from vvundertone analyzed the sound with software that registered the tone at 8 kilohertz. He said, that listening to a single high frequency tone like this could be damaging especially after being constantly exposed to it. When a high frequency like this is mixed with others its okay, but a single tone at this level has a different impact. Using a tone like this to scare away birds, sounded strange to him.
“It’s like a sonic ice pick–just stabbing you,” said Hi-8, “That’s just reckless behavior.”
When listening back to our own recordings from under the bridge the tone distorted the microphone signal, rendering a significant amount of the tape unusable.
The frequency does not reach all areas of the parking lot to the same degree. The area where the pitch is the loudest and most obvious is under the bridge, where the daylaborers and haulers wait for clients. It's excruciating and relentless.
It’s less audible in the first parking lot directly in front of The Home Depot.
The Cypress Park Day Laborer Center, run by Instituto de Educacion Popular del Sur de California (IDEPSCA), is also in audible range of the noise. The worker center has been at its current location since 2020.
An ordinance was passed in 2008 that required home improvement stores in Los Angeles to provide safe spaces for day laborers, as reported by ABC7.
“I can’t say I ever noticed until you brought it up,” Benny Sanchez, a customer at The Home Depot tells us. “I shop here a lot, been shopping here for 20 years. I don’t spend a lot of time in the parking lot where it’s gonna be excruciating. Some stores have really loud music or some noise and it’s irritating. If you're high on drugs you don’t wanna be here.”
The first day they were installed, three Home Depot employees were seen taking a video of the devices, according to Cloodcat, a member of the Los Anegeles Tenant’s Union. (He asks to be referred to as Cloodcat due to fears of retribution). He goes to the Home Depot several times per week.
When the speakers were installed, he asked employees if they could hear a noise. One of the employees responded, “Nah, I don’t hear anything.”
The installation of these devices happened on November 24, shortly after the Home Depot was raided on November 5. Six people and one toddler were detained in the parking lot that day, while a U.S. Citizen was also temporarily detained by Border Patrol agents.
According to a press release by IDEPSCA, the Cypress Park Home Depot has been raided by the U.S Border Patrol four times. At least 50 day laborers, street vendors, and community residents have been taken from the parking lot.
Across the nation, a movement set on spreading a boycott of Home Depot has been brewing.
This past weekend, several protestors sang Christmas carols outside of a Home Depot in Encinitas. A protest was held at the Monrovia Home Depot earlier this month, in which protesters bought inexpensive ice scrapers and then returned them to gum up the store’s works. In August, a man was killed after running onto a freeway while fleeing an immigration raid occurring at this location.
The Home Depot boycott movement was sparked by the immigration raids that have targeted the store’s parking lots, where it is common knowledge that daylaborers go to seek employment.
The Home Depot Inc. has not issued a statement denouncing federal immigration raids occurring on their property, but they told Newsweek they do not coordinate with ICE or Border Patrol.
The co-founder of Home Depot, Bernie Marcus, was a major contributor to President Trump's 2016 campaign–donating over seven million dollars, according to The Guardian.
“That silence speaks volumes. Home Depot cannot claim to serve our communities while allowing federal agents to terrorize people on their property,” declares the The Boycott Home Depot Network website. The network seeks to pressure the company to denounce immigration raids at their locations while encouraging a boycott of the stores.
“I think they put it there to get rid of us,” says daylaborer Jose De La Torre about the speakers. He has been going to the Cypress Park location on and off for 20 years.
Since the implementation of the speakers De La Torre has had to wear earplugs to protect his ears.
“They think we’re lowlifes, but we’re just trying to make an honest living,” he says.
The daylaborers watch over the customers and their cars, and signal an alert if anyone attempts to steal a car, he continues. At 65-years-old, he’s homeless; social security not being sufficient to make ends meet. This is why he has to seek work at The Home Depot parking lot.
“People are so scared, you get work once a month and make $40 for two hours,” said De La Torre. “Whatever you get, you take it. There’s hardly any work. Can’t move [my] truck, can’t afford gas. It’s tough.”
Four yellow gates have also been added to a second parking lot in recent weeks, one installed in front of the worker center.
This is only the most recent event in a long conflict between The Home Depot and the day laborers. One that has raged for 20 years, according to one day laborer we spoke to.
“The store has brought in aggressive security guards before to start fights with us,” he says. “[The gates] were installed to close us in, to cage us, leaving only two ways to exit. They want to make it more difficult for us to find work.”
(Original Spanish: “Ellos han traído seguridades más conflictivos, para que pelean con los jornaleros,” él dijo. “Fue instalado para tener los encerrados, viene siendo como una jaula donde no más hay dos salidas. Para que la gente ya no venga a contratar más fácil.)
Throughout that time, he says, there’s been tension between The Home Depot and the daylaborers. Occasionally, The Home Depot security guards would try to move them out, with varying levels of aggression, he says.
When he saw one of the store managers turning on the speakers on a recent day, he asked him why the devices were installed. The Home Depot employee told him they were installed to scare off the birds. When the daylaborer told him the tone was really bothering him and other workers in the parking lot, the Home Depot employee responded, by asking him, “Why don’t you guys leave?”
(Original Spanish: “Por que no se van?”)
He replied, they would leave if he could show them a permit that required them to leave. The Home Depot employee said he did not have to show him any permit, and used the word “illegal” before he left.
The daylaborer told him he’s not illegal. The worker replied that he was saying that the daylaborers truck was illegally parked. The daylaborer felt the Home Depot employee was calling him illegal.
At another Home Depot in El Cajon, a security guard is seen filming daylaborers, while community activists call for the security guard to stop filming.
He says store workers have called the police on them in the past. but the installation of the speakers and the gates has been the most aggressive tactic they’ve experienced.
“They’ve lied to us several times when asked what the purpose of these devices are,” Cloodcat says. “What they installed are anti-loitering devices meant to drive people away. That’s how they are advertised online for sale. They are clearly targeting the working class people on the ground. Instead of telling the federal government to not come on their private property, they are getting the jornaleros to move.”
Cloodcat says that he and his colleagues at the different organizations that watch over the day laborers have not found birds to be an issue. He personally says he has not encountered any birds under the bridge. We have yet to hear from any customers claiming to have been sickened as a result of neighborhood birds, or of any of the daylaborers or worker center employees.
“What’s that noise? It’s painful,” my Lyft driver notes as we leave the parking lot. The pitch is audible even to someone driving in their car.
“The Home Depot has several initiatives we use to keep our stores safe, including human and technology resources,” said Everlyn Fornes Sr. Manager, Public Affairs for The Home Depot, when asked about the speakers.
IDEPSCA began its press conference regarding the anti-loitering speakers at the Cypress Park Home Depot, at 2055 N. Figueroa St. Los Angeles, CA 90065 at 10 a.m today. A small crowd gathered outside the worker center in the parking lot. Missing from the soundscape of the parking lot was the high pitch tone that L.A. TACO has heard when reporting on the ground for this story.
Representatives from Council District 1, IDEPSCA, and Staff and Day Labor Members addressed the crowd. The Home Depot contacted Council Member of District 1 Eunisses Hernandez staff asking if IDEPSCA would be willing to call off the press conference if the store turned off the machines during the day.
Specifically, IDEPSCA Executive Director Maegan Ortiz was repeatedly contacted by Francisco Uribe Senior Director, Government relations of The Home Depot ahead of today’s press conference via phone call and text messages shared with L.A. TACO by Ortiz. “These are torture devices” said Ortiz. “The Home Depot despite what they have said publicly is complicit in attacks against our immigrant community.”
If you’re curious about the noise, we'll be posting the audio to our Instagram page.
