As they were finishing construction of their new home, the Spanish wind company Gamesa was finishing up building its windfarm in their neighborhood. In November 2006, a month after Gail and Walter had their house-warming party, the turbines were turned on.

Their lives ever since have been hellish (except for brief trips away). Day after day. Relentless. Unending. Gail and Walter have asked that their diary be circulated widely, in the hope of saving other communities and individuals from the misery and horror they are living through.

Contact information (address, email, and phone) is given at the end of the diary, which is presented exactly as Gail wrote it, honey bees and all (they are hobby beekeepers).

The entries speak for themselves. On re-reading what we’ve been through this year it sounds like someone’s worst nightmare — and so it has been. The idea that someone, somewhere has made a lot of money by effectively dispossessing us, doesn’t bear thinking about, but it happens all the time, all over the world and the horror is creeping nearer home…

The more people know about this, the better.

Download “Italian Windfarm Diary”

Dear Dr Pierpont,

In 1999 my husband and I bought a piece of land in Tuscany (Scansano) in the province of Grosseto. During the following 7 years we built our house and in October 2006 we moved from Germany, where we had been working and living, to our new home. We arrived just in time to see the last of 10 wind turbines (121m) erected on the hills opposite our house (Parco Eolico di Scansano). The nearest to us is approximately 350-400m as the crow flies. We had not been informed of this beforehand.

Since that time I have suffered from various ‘problems’ that I’d never had before, ranging from a general sense of agitation to depression and panic attacks during the night. I hear a low pulsating buzzing sound most of the time even when the turbines are not moving I consulted a doctor in the town and was offered mood ‘elevators’ to help me deal with the situation. I did not accept, even though I was assured that the medication was free of charge.

The situation made me incapable of maintaining my usually cheerful nature and going about my normal daily life. In the end we decided (my husband, Walter, and I) that I should return to Germany, look for a place to rent and pick up my old life and work (I left 8th October 2007). Once away from my Italian house I returned to normal and thought that perhaps I’d just been having a bad phase or it was my age (I’m 52), so I did not look for somewhere permanent to live.

Both of us suffered from the separation, so I returned on 18th December 2007 and was almost immediately struck by uncontrollable bouts of crying. I’ve lost my concentration again and my studies at the Open University, which I started in October 2007 may also suffer as a result. The worst of the matter is that I would now rather avoid meeting other people because they don’t understand the nature of my depression. I have also been treated as a hysteric by some of the people responsible. However, most of all I feel sorry for Walter, who is very kind and understanding, because it is an added burden for him. He is a gardener and there are days when it is impossible for him to work in the garden because of the noise.

See Gail’s 2007 diary of 2007 (click here).