People living north of the train tracks on several blocks either side of Mayfair Ave. say they are now hearing a constant blast that CTV reporter Rob Lurie described as "a neighbour's snowblower going all day and all night."
Laurence Isaac said a certain amount of noise anywhere is inevitable, but said what is being generated now is unacceptable.
"We have a train that runs in the neighbourhood, it's an AMT train so it runs only during the day, but after that it's a quiet neighbourhood. Birds, you know, a nice quiet place. But this has just taken the quiet away. There's just a constant sound, constant, 24/7, and it's infuriating" said Isaac.
The noise is coming from a data centre on St. Jacques St. that is constantly running fans to cool computers and servers.
eStruxture has taken over the building that used to be the home to The Gazette's printing presses and added high-powered ventilation systems.
"It's like water torture, a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time. So now I leave the house sometimes and I still hear it in my head. It's printed into my brain," said Isaac.
"That's when I realized this is a crazy situation."
Residents said they have contacted eStruxture to discuss the noise, and said the company has taken steps to mitigate the problem by erecting a temporary sound barrier.
Company officials said since they learned about the noise problem from residents they have taken steps to request permits to build permanent sound barriers
The company has two other data centres in the Montreal area, and a fourth facility in Vancouver. They are used for cloud computing and designed to run constantly, with diesel generator backups in case of power failure.
However NDG residents are now worried that if the noise is going to be constant that they've lost money on their homes.
"Who's going to want to buy this house now?" said Isaac.
