An ‘electro-sensitive’ pensioner has spent more than £4,000, for equipment to protect her home against WiFi and phone signals.
72-year-old Stephanie Russell claims that signals from modern technologies made her feel so ill, she’s paid for builders to coat her house with paint that claims to better at absorbing radio frequencies.
Russell said the severity of her condition means she cannot travel on buses or go to public places because of other people’s phones.
Symptoms of electro-sensitivity include a prickling sensation, headaches, stress and general fatigue. Electro-sensitivity, also known as EHS (electromagnetic hypersensitivity), is not a recognised as a medical condition.
Speaking to the Brighton Argus, Russell said: “I’ve not been diagnosed by a doctor but my GP surgery is aware of my condition. Every time I am near WiFi or mobile phone signals I feel ill.”
The painting is being undertaken by a company called Block Radiation, a Lancashire-based outfit that sells items such as sleeping bags, bed canopies and mains socket adapters designed to protect against ‘electro smog’ and ‘dirty electricity’.
Despite a double-blind trial from 2007 and a 2008 study funded by the University of Berne suggesting that EHS isn’t real, Block Radiation’s CEO Glynn Hughes claims that there’s not been enough research into EHS.
Hughes told the Argus: “This is similar to everyone’s perceptions of smoking 50 years ago. No-one believed it was bad for your health until later on.
“I know a 20-year-old girl who has to spend 23 hours a day in the dark after electro-sensitivity caused her to become light sensitive.”
Block Radiation, which runs the site wireless-protection.org sells tins of the WiFi-repelling Blocpaint for £28, protective bed-mats for £119.15 and radio frequency-blocking bed canopies that start at £545.
Russell is now on a campaign to ban WiFi from schools, arguing that children could be ‘cooked’ by the signals.
BT’s public WiFi network consists of over 5 million hotspots and O2 WiFi is available in a number of high street locations including Costa, Debenhams and Argos.
Leave a Reply