‘It’s past unbelievable’ – Residents aggravated by Windsor hum say it’s reached its highest volume in years

June 2016 – MYSTERY HUM – The volume got cranked up on the Windsor Hum Sunday night. A Facebook page for hum haters and rumble recorders exploded as person after person said the pulses, pounding and vibrations were some of the worst in years. “It was disastrous last night,” west-end dweller Mike Provost said Monday. “It’s past unbelievable. I have never heard it like that in six years that I’ve been recording. Never have I ever heard it like that.”

Resident devoted thousands of hours to stopping mysterious ‘Windsor Hum’ that is loud ‘enough to drive you insane. Provost, a retiree whose back yard on Hillcrest Boulevard faces towards Zug Island, stressed the hum is not back. It’s always there and becomes more persistent and annoying at times, he said. Provost described it as a thunderous roar or rolling thunder that he said was reported to be felt or heard 17 kilometres away in McGregor, Amherstburg and River Canard Sunday night.

For years residents in west Windsor and nearby parts of Essex County have been complaining about a mysterious hum like a refrigerator truck running. In March there were more complaints. In 2014, a federal government study linked the hum to U.S. Steel Corp. operations on Zug Island but an exact cause couldn’t be pinpointed when the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade said it couldn’t access the U.S. site. The guess was furnace blasts. Provost worries about health impacts from the industrial noise. “They know who they are. I’m sure of that,” Provost said. “Figure out a way to muffle the noise.”

He said people started posting on Facebook at the Windsor/Essex County Hum page at 9:20 p.m. Sunday and then there was another flurry of posts Monday morning between 5:45 a.m. and 10 a.m. He’s been recording the hum continually for years and changes his tape every 24 hours, he said. He’s hoping all the information will help show politicians what the residents put up with and pinpoint a cause.

Windsor drummer Jeff Burrows, who lives in south Windsor, said he heard the long, drawn-out, low frequency hum for the first time in more than a year at 4 a.m. Monday. It woke him up. “It’s like four in the morning and I’m like uh, seriously.” He turned to Twitter to post that the hum was back. Sonya Skillings, who was the first one to take the mysterious hum to the press, said she noticed the hum more this morning as she got her kids ready for school. She said it was one of the worst rumblings in the last six years. “It’s aggravating.”

She doesn’t know if she’s hearing the hum or feeling it as it shakes her west Windsor home. She’d like to know exactly what it is and if something could be done to confine it, she said. Windsor West MP Brian Masse’s office usually hears about it when the hum is bothersome. Masse who is in Ottawa wasn’t available Monday afternoon but a message was left at the Windsor office about the number of calls or emails received recently on the hum.  –National Post