When I checked out the apartment, there was no indication of its being unhealthy (the noise pollution) except for the doctors and dentists on the first floor who protect themselves from this hazard by covering their windows with traditional bricks and glass bricks, for the front and the back. It has a nice fa ade. The windows of the residential units are originals, dating to a time when Raritan Avenue was not busy, so they are drafty and vibrate or rattle when buses and garbage trucks accelerate from the red light. That noise -- sound travels in waves -- can be felt in the walls and sensed in tenants bodies. Extensive medical research, not to mention technological investments, is connected to these issues. Commuters, notice that the State of New Jersey is building walls along its freeways and highways. Doctors study the contraction of the skin caused by fewer than 88 decibels, correlate hormonal excretion into the blood from noise equivalent to traffic, and show how loud environments effect decision making although at least one study proves that noise pollution does not diminish the efficiency of clerical aids. Research conducted for the Department of Labor advises employers to limit the exposure of employees to more than 90 decibels by using a rotating schedule. Diesel engines and motor cycles do not make 100 decibels, jet engines at take off are about 120 and most cars produce only 40 -50 decibels: PhD scientists qualify the latter as a quiet zone. Loudness at the Ausonia is not immediately annoying or perceptible. I become sensitive to it after a couple of hours and am more likely to feel fatigue than be disposed to do manual labor. Yes, the sirens wake me up: there are ambulances and the firehouse is on South 5th. For kids, the Ausonia is probably a better environment for sleeping than doing home work. When I recently turned on the ceiling fan at night, my new upstairs neighbor turned on an electric razor to vibrate the ceiling then repeatedly stamped on the floor above the fan. I bruised my foot doing the same thing last summer. It s called the bee hive effect. However, used properly, ceiling fans keep hot air down in the winter and rooms cool in the summer; some tenants counterbalance the fluctuating noise of the street, i.e. acceleration and deceleration mechanically regulated by traffic lights with the ambient sound of the fans. Breaking the lease at the Ausonia, during the first year of residency, entails forfeiture of the one and a half month security deposit and a toll of two and a half months of rent. Not all of the businesses on Raritan Avenue have insulated windows, as the coffee shop or the pharmacy do, some people may like it, and in the same way that the eye dilates in bright light the ear quickly adjusts to volume, like kids with earphones. Also, couples, be advised that the Borough of Highland Park and the Fire Department, who charge tenants $80 for the Health Inspection in addition to charging the landlord, restricts the occupancy of a large one-bedroom apartment to two humans. Occupancy by three humans in a large one-bedroom apartment provides the landlord with grounds for eviction. For more information about noise pollution, see: Environmental pollution : health and toxicology by S.V.S. Rana; An updated catalog of 521 social surveys of residents' reactions to environmental noise (1943-2000) by James M. Fields, The handbook of hearing and the effects of noise : physiology, psychology, and public health by Karl D. Kryter; Noise & health, Thomas H. Fay, editor; The Noise handbook, edited by W. Tempest; Public hearing before Assembly and Senate Committee on Air, Water Pollution and Public Health on Assembly bill no. 2181 and Senate bill no. 2069 (noise control). Held: April 6, 1971, Trenton, New Jersey. Legislature. General Assembly.

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