Any noise — whether it be the running engine of a van/tractor/digger/generator/mixer/other heavy vehicle/machinery or whether it be other construction sounds e.g. hammering, putting up scaffolding, drilling, a pecker drill etc. — seriously harms me, tortures me and endangers my life, as explained below.
For medical reasons, noise is literally torture for me. It is not merely ‘uncomfortable’ or ‘hypersensitivity’, it is unbearable constant agony and also inflicts lasting damage. Due to the reduced blood flow to all my body (because of the vascular compression of blood vessels in my neck due to the CCI/AAI (spinal neck instabilities) due to genetically confirmed Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome), my mitochondria don’t produce the energy needed for my body to function, so even noise acts as a physical exertion on my failing systems. Sounds that usually would not be a problem for other people, are a disaster for me. The vibrations of noise also disrupt my heart rhythms. It pushes me into chronic heart failure. Noise also produces agonising unbearable spine pain, nerve pain and head pain. Compression of my brainstem, cranial settling, and inflammation of the spinal cord, mean that noise is agony.
Not knowing when you are going to be tortured is an additional trauma to the torture itself. Private developers/construction companies are unwilling to provide days and times when construction work will be taking place.
Due to my unusual medical situation and rigid medical schedule, while I fundraise for my urgently-needed neurosurgery that isn’t available in the U.K. (this terrible situation for patients like me has recently been brought up in Prime Minister’s Questions by the MP Josh Newbury), I have to run on a ~48-72 hour long day, instead of a 24 hour day, in order to do all the things medically that I need to stay alive; this means that I often need to sleep during the day. Construction noise, vehicle noise (engines running), machines and drilling noise etc., means that sleep is impossible during the day as a result. This leaves me with extreme sleep deprivation. Sleep deprivation is often used as a method of torture. Sleep deprivation also leads to my organs going into semi-failure, as well as leading to vomiting, fevers, and seizures.
For the reasons explained in this video https://youtu.be/4XbNiqMCMns I can’t eat or sleep whenever I like; I have to plan for it. In order to be able to swallow my liquidised food, I have to get enough blood back to regain sensation and feeling in my mouth and swallowing mechanism. To do this, I have to spend 19+ hours lying completely still, in a specific position, without blacking out (again, this is explained more clearly in the video), which then leaves it safe to swallow. If I’m too sleep deprived from not being able to sleep due to noise from the private developer (including running engines of vehicles), then I’m not able to last 19 hours without blacking out and I won’t be able to eat. Similarly, I need that 19 hours, completely still in a specific position without blacking out, to get enough blood back in my body to be able to feel enough of my neck in order to work for hours making micro-adjustments to my neck, gradually untangling it and pulling it out of its sunken position (again this is explained in a more clear way in the video) before finally getting to my “sleep time”. If I don’t do this, when it comes to my time for sleep, I wake up after a couple of minutes, numb and partially paralysed, unable to breathe, in a chokehold position where my neck has slid to. So if construction noise comes at the beginning of the time that I’m meant to start sleeping, after I’ve spent 48hours getting into a position where I can sleep safely, all that time will have been wasted and I won’t be able to sleep because of the noise. I’m already suffering from severe sleep deprivation as a result of the private developer’s noise.
That is why it is so essential that we are provided with a schedule of when the construction noise will be taking place, so that I don’t spend 48hours working hard to get my body into a safe place to sleep, only for that sleep time to be stolen from me by noise that stops me from sleeping.
Ideally, all construction work would be stopped with immediate effect. Everyone has the right to not be tortured under Article 3 of the Human Rights Act, which is the law. If nobody is willing to enforce the law, then at the very least, I need the reprieve of no noise on weekends and also I need a schedule of days and times when the work will be taking place, so that I can attempt to plan what I need to do to keep my body functioning, fitting around the times of the noise. It is not right that the developer is imposing his timetable, and that others have to fit their whole lives around his wishes. I need to be able to eat and sleep so, I need at least to know the times when he is going to turn up and inflict excruciating agony on me.
The new developer started work in December 2025 and is still ongoing at time of publishing (September 2026). This additional developer comes after Adra imposed their construction work torture on me for nine months and then straight afterwards there was a different private developer doing work on the terraced houses next to us. As a result of the damage that both of these construction projects did to me, I am now unable to swallow solid foods (I have liquidised foods now), my body has become progressively more numb (again, see the video for the reasons why), and the exhaustion often left my body in fevers, vomiting and tachycardia. It also meant that I was not able to do any fundraising during that time for my urgently-needed neurosurgery because the noise made me so ill. The money that I would have raised in that time was stolen from me. We came to this village specifically for the quiet, which now seems like a cruel joke.
This new developer has already stolen Christmas and my 40th birthday, which I spent in agony because of him, and they have already done untold damage to my body. I will also be too incapacitated by the noise to be able to fundraise again. I desperately need the neurosurgery. The private developer should help me reach my target for the fundraising, since he is causing loss of incoming funds.
I don’t know how much extra damage to my body that this new construction work from this private developer will cause, but it’s not a question of ‘if’; there has already been damage and there will definitely be more damage.
Not knowing when a torturer is going to turn up from day-to-day is a terrorising experience.
Unfortunately, as with Adra, I can’t be moved away from the noise because unfortunately it is too dangerous and life-threatening to move me. I cannot be moved, neurosurgeons have confirmed, apart from to get the surgery. When I finally raise the money for the neurosurgery, I’ll be able to be moved via Medevac air ambulance, because there will be an operation at the end of the journey to fix any damage done to my neck during the journey.
I also cannot wear ear defenders due to the damage to my neck, as well as blood flow being further reduced by them and also physically being unable to wear them due to lying flat horizontally against a pillow. I am bed-bound and unable to lift or move or turn my head and neck from my pillow, and it is life-threatening to do so. I’m awaiting neurosurgery in the US (not available in the UK) while I fundraise to pay for it (see https://gofundme.com/savejenny ).