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After a string of arson attacks on Lower Mainland schools, the Vancouver School Board is fast-tracking plans to reintroduce the Mosquito, a controversial device that wards off teenagers using a shrill noise that only they can hear.

“As long as you’re putting it on private property — which is what school board property is — and you’re doing it in an open, informed way, it’s fine,” said Vancouver school trustee Mike Lombardi, noting that Vancouver schools are hit with $500,000 in vandalism per year.

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Invented in the U.K., the Mosquito exploits the gradual degradation of the human ear to zero in on a frequency that can only be heard by people between the ages of 13 and 25. Although the sound is imperceptible to adults, to teenagers it is often described as “nails on a chalkboard.”

School board maintenance staff had installed 33 of the units by March, before complaints from neighbours and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association prompted trustees to order them all switched off.