SoCal inventor looking for solution to ward off unwanted visitors creates Blue Chirper device

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- Whether you are a small business owner or a home owner, homelessness and drug addiction can have a very real impact on your way of life in certain neighborhoods.

That's why one local inventor created a way to make his home uncomfortable for uninvited guests.

Reed Park in Santa Monica has been called the largest open-air drug mall on the West Side of Los Angeles. Sprinkled among the park's basketball courts and playgrounds, you'll find people in the grip of addiction. And in the surrounding neighborhoods, it's not uncommon for the problem to reach your doorstep.

At a seven-unit building in Santa Monica, just three blocks from Reed Park, Stephen McMahon's idea became reality.

The Blue Chirper was created in the hopes of making the building's garage uncomfortable for anyone searching for a place to settle in and get high.

"It has worked way beyond my wildest expectations. It's extremely effective. It works. It moves people away from your property," McMahon said.

The Blue Chirper combines blue flashing lights, which are known to keep people awake, with the annoying sounds of crickets to discourage anyone from setting up camp in the apartment's garage. Activated by a motion detector, the results were obvious and immediate.

"The first weekend I caught a guy, and he went back there, and he heard that and he and his pal got up and just booked out of there. I mean they didn't even stop, they barely stopped," McMahon said.

The Santa Monica Police Department has spoken with McMahon about the Blue Chirper. While they don't have an official position on his invention, the concept is one they use and believe is effective.

"People will change their behavior when they believe they're being monitored, and anything that gives them that feeling that they're being watched or that people are paying attention, that the police may be paying attention, it will get them to be a little bit more reflective about whatever their behavior is, and more likely than not, it will encourage them to stop," said Lt. Erika R. Aklufi with SMPD.

Because the Chirper activates through a motion detector and cycles off when no motion is detected, it also serves as a warning to any resident who is entering the garage and hears chirping.

The first generation of the Blue Chirper was simply hidden in storage units in the garage but with hundreds of people asking for one, it's now being developed into something more portable. It could be placed near a home or business' entrance -- anywhere people might be unwelcome.

"We're not curing anybody. We are diverting them away from our property to somewhere else, and if they keep being diverted and keep being diverted, perhaps they might turn to something else," McMahon said.