A woman who has been living with a background hum so bad that she has lost sleep, lost her job and has turned to listening to Coldplay to block it out is hopeful experts will now find the cause.
Yvonne Connor's home has been the centre of an investigation by Environmental Health experts who are due to deliver a report within weeks.
Yvonne, 51, who lives in Holmfield, near Halifax, says she feels 'exhausted' due to disturbed sleep which she says has caused severe stress and a knock-on effect on her physical health, reports YorkshireLive. Yvonne said: "It's really hard because I don't sleep properly for about three nights in a week. I wake up at 2am, 4am, 5am and I can't get back to sleep."
Her only respite is to listen to music on headphones. Last week I listened to three Coldplay albums back to back. By Thursday and Friday, I am exhausted."
Yvonne, who now works as a self-employed dog walker having given up her job because os stress, sometimes has to manage with only three hours of sleep a night.
Stress has brought on a skin rash, and a throat condition caused by stomach acid. She also discovered that she clenches her jaw whilst asleep due to stress.
Along with other residents who can hear the hum, Yvonne has been campaigning for months for action to be taken and says Calderdale Council is still investigating. In January, the council said the cause of the hum had been narrowed down to three possible sources.
"Environmental Health put a monitor in my house in December. They came back in January to monitor it again."
She is expecting to hear the findings next week. It's not clear if she will find out more about the possible source of the hum - which she believes is industrial - or whether the report will focus on the nature of the sound.
"It's an industrial noise," she says. "It is a low, resonating frequency. This is not a mysterious thing - it's controlled by somebody; it changes in tone."
She believes the tone changes when there is a change of shift at a nearby factory. "I don't know what the report (from the council) will look like. I expect they will tell me it's not a statutory nuisance."
"I am stressed all the time," says Yvonne. "I nearly had a nervous breakdown and I had shingles."
She added: "I wake up every day feeling tired...I don't know where this ends."
