Residents of Dowagiac, Michigan, just filed a lawsuit against a data center that allegedly generates a high-pitched whining sound — and has done so 24/7 for the past two years.
The data center, which is owned by Alliance Cloud Services LLC, a subsidiary of Hyperscale Data, used to be an industrial building that sat behind a row of pine trees across the street from the most affected residents, according to ABC-affiliateWXYZ. The site started development in 2018 and was eventually turned into a cryptocurrency mining center in 2021. But in 2024, something changed drastically when the building started emitting noise pollution around the clock. Residents say it sounds like a vacuum cleaner in their living room, and the company has offered to buy up homes from unhappy residents.
51 Comments
grte@lemmy.ca · 203 pts · 55d
Very convenient for them that they converted their data centre into a property value destroyer before making this offer. I'm sure that's coincidental.
EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 73 pts · 55d
Offer to buy at 500x the highest value it ever had, when adjusted for inflation, plus 10% of the company's revenue going forward, and maybe I'd consider it.
MangoCats@feddit.it · 11 pts · 55d
More reasonable: roll back to before the datacenter was permitted for construction, find substantially equivalent houses in the general area - 20% more square footage, 20% higher value per square foot, and track their values over time until the present, and whatever the peak was, offer 20% more than that plus moving expenses... effectively 175% of "fair" value + maybe $20K.
EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 31 pts · 55d
Why be "reasonable" with unreasonable people?
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 55d
Being "reasonable" with unreasonable people is unreasonable. Be reasonable.
ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de · 2 pts · 55d
So far what they've done sounds like they're trying to be somewhat reasonable. They bought a bunch of acreage as a sound buffer zone and they offered to buy people's houses at a price we don't have information on. We don't really know how unreasonable they're going to be.
athatet@lemmy.zip · 17 pts · 55d
Most reasonable: burn down the data center and build low cost housing on the ashes.
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today · 7 pts · 55d
Plus .5% of all future profits.
Passerby6497@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 55d
Always get a part of the gross, there's no net!
weew@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 55d
So... An extra $0?
MangoCats@feddit.it · 4 pts · 55d
Yeah, 0.5% was what I was offered as Director of 50% of new startups... 0.005% is more realistic - and could range from 0 to outrageous.
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 9 pts · 55d
Yeah an outrageous amount, plus ethical costs to undo all the fuckery, the lost peace, the labor and lost investments, and all of that doubled, is the correct fee.
If the house would have sold for 1m, ask for 50m, then the environmental damage costs in equipment and labor and plants and animals, so now we're up to 1b, doubled to 2b, and a fat 50% fuckyou fee on top and round up to 3b usd.
People need to aim higher. If the company won't pay and will ruin your life instead, then guess their intent is actual war, and they shall have it.
Don't let the bullies win. Fight back.
Evotech@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 55d
Monument@piefed.world · 108 pts · 55d
Neat. I looked it up.
Less than a mile from a wildlife refuge.
Zarobi@aussie.zone · 70 pts · 55d
Good thing wildlife are known for their terrible hearing
MangoCats@feddit.it · 26 pts · 55d
There's the thing: what's a woodpecker's property rights on his dead tree? I mean, you can offer him any amount of money and he isn't likely to just give up the nest he carved in it and move on to try to find another. Ask a colony of bats what they want to move to a new roost?
Same for people's homes, there's a price they could get for them if they tried to sell on the open market because they want to leave, but there's a very different and often much higher price that would be required to compensate them for the downsides of moving.
When a corporation wants to entice a new hire to move to a new city, they will buy the home at high-end market value, pay the real-estate commissions on both sale of the old home and purchase of the new home, pay for professional movers, and bulk up all of these benefits to cover increased income taxes where applicable. And that's for a new hire who wants to move.
NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip · 1 pts · 55d
How many years until they evolve to have bad hearing?
WesternInfidels@feddit.online · 85 pts · 55d
Why would anyone outside the business give a shit about this? Why would the CEO think anyone outside the business gave a shit about this?
Why aren't the datacenter owners ever willing to spend, say, $10 million on making the data center actually quiet instead?
HeartyOfGlass@piefed.social · 17 pts · 55d
I think you know the answer to this - $10 mil on soundproofing doesn't make the Bottom Line go up. The only people they're trying to please are the folks that profit off the company.
kent_eh@lemmy.ca · 5 pts · 55d
Neither does buying out 10 million worth of houses.
HeartyOfGlass@piefed.social · 5 pts · 55d
I didn’t see anywhere in the article where they say they were going to buy the houses for that amount. Do you have other information?
'Cause otherwise - those homes have been severely devalued because of that data center. Unless the CEO was feeling generous (ha), those homeowners would be forced to sell for a bottom-of-the-barrel price. And that is much cheaper than litigation.
kent_eh@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 55d
No, but it also didn't say how many houses might be affected.
EliteCloneMike@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 55d
His real audience are the investors and people who stand to make a profit off of this data center. CEOs rarely if ever addressing anybody but the shareholders. It sounds dumb in that context, because it is, but when you realize who the real audience is, it makes sense. It’s shitty.
kevin2107@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 55d
cost a hell of alot more than 10 million
the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world · 73 pts · 55d
Don't sell!!! Sue the fuck out of them until they leave.
mPony@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 55d
I've heard there are other ways to be sure.
the_riviera_kid@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 55d
In a totally unrelated note, Have you ever noticed how pretty fire can be?
notabot@piefed.social · 64 pts · 55d
That's very decent if them, but the thing is, there's now strong demand for those houses, as there's a corporate buyer looking to purchase them, so the price has gone up a bit. Say by an extra digit or so added to the value.
T00l_shed@lemmy.world · 31 pts · 55d
Yup, if say, the going rate for the houses were 400k, we'll they should now be 4 mil each
acosmichippo@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 55d
also if you have a lower interest rate than is available today (likely) then your payments are going to go up even if you buy a house at the exact same price. not to mention the cost and hassle of moving.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 55d
Nah, they’ll have the government eminent domain the houses for pennies on the dollar
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 4 pts · 55d
Can’t eminent domain for a data center that’s already built.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · 16 pts · 55d
Can do it for expanding a data center
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 1 pts · 55d
Are they expanding? Because the article is about noise.
Aqivex@fedinsfw.app · 19 pts · 55d
Other poster isn't being difficult, facetious, or provocative, btw. The scumbags have already done exactly that, in other US states, already. Often. The articles are all over Lemmy.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 55d
The developer mentions wanting to expand in the article
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 7 pts · 55d
Thanks, I missed that as I was skimming. Jeeze, really burying the lede there that a company already fucking up the neighborhood wants to get bigger.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 55d
Can’t have a neighborhood complaining about noise if there’s no neighborhood
brickfrog@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 55d
It's mainly about the noise but the article does mention
anomnom@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 55d
Expanding “in the footprint” would mean adding more operations to the existing property, not taking more property. Unless that’s a typo
TachyonTele_Esq@piefed.social · 8 pts · 55d
With the current government they'll be able to eminent domain when they feel like it.
Catoblepas@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 24 pts · 55d
“I’m gonna pay you $20 to fuck off.”
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 55d
I’m sure at a fair price.
Folstar@lemmus.org · 12 pts · 55d
It would be kind of hilarious in the darkest timeline kind of way if Hyperscale Data tried to haggle them down because houses near a data center are worth less.
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 55d
not hilarious, this is exactly what they do.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 55d
You can buy my house - for a billion dollars.
IphtashuFitz@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 55d
What are they offering to buy the homes with, highly volatile shares of the AI companies stock, or millions of tokens they can use the AI with?
bad1080@piefed.social · 8 pts · 55d
"we'll buy the homes with tokens" is the most asinine shit but it probably has come up in a board meeting...
NotASharkInAManSuit@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 55d
GreenKnight23@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 55d
sure! $600,000,000 please.
it's prime land, if they invest now, they can build another datacenter on it.
nullspace@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 55d
When was the last time you dusted out your computer case?
ViceroTempus@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 55d
I wonder what's the number of people affected by this in the local area, and how much greater that number is in comparison to the security force of the data center. Maybe if a town went scorched earth on one of these, we'd start seeing some material changes in how they do business...