Without verbatim: The source of the problem was a homemade battery-operated device designed by a local resident to alert him if someone was upstairs wh

Without verbatim: The source of the problem was a homemade battery-operated device designed by a local resident to alert him if someone was upstairs when he was working in his basement. It did so by turning off a light. “He has a fascination with electronics,” Mr. Glassburn said, adding that the resident has special needs and would not be identified to protect his privacy. The inventor and other residents of his home had no idea that the device was wreaking havoc on the neighborhood, he said, until Mr. Glassburn and a volunteer with expertise in radio frequencies knocked on the door. “The way he designed it, it was persistently putting out a 315 megahertz signal,” Mr. Glassburn said. That is the frequency many car fobs and garage door openers rely on. “There was no malicious intent of the device,” he said in a statement. The battery on the device was removed and the signal stopped. “It was a relief,” Mr. Glassburn said.