AUSTIN, Texas —
A noisy neighbor is now gone from a Central Austin neighborhood after residents banded together to get answers.
For about a week straight, people living near West 34 Street and Jefferson Street were losing sleep because of a giant generator on their block.
One woman who lives directly across from where the generator was located said it was awful.
The noise stretched to those around the corner and down the block. All residents said that for almost a week, the sound tormented them, keeping them up at night and disrupting their daily lives.
"It's been hell. We have been experiencing 24/7. Like, the sound of a jackhammer directly outside of your window," Sonya Spielberg said.
Spielberg lives close to the generator and said it kept her awake.
The noise even disturbed neighbors around the corner, like Tony Kaplan, who didn't know what it was at first.
"I heard this buzzing, loud buzzing and vibration noise in my house when I walked in. And I actually went to my attic thinking it was my furnace. There's something wrong," Kaplan said.
One homeowner just had her house renovated and was set to move back in with her newborn baby, but the noise made her worried.
"I am hesitant to move back in because I have a 9-month-old baby boy and who naps during the day. And sleep is critical at this point," Mia Breedlove said. "We have to we have to jump through so many hoops to figure out how to make it stop."
The generator was set up to power AT&T equipment. Neighbors said they received no response from the company when reaching out to ask questions.
"Hours and hours of being on hold, never getting a supervisor, never getting a number or direct person who was accountable," Spielberg said.
After nearly a week, the generator ran out of gas and when a worker came to refill it, the neighbors took that as their chance to get some answers.
"He was filling up and we kind of ambushed him, frankly, and got the whole neighborhood out here to talk about what's going on here because it's not a livable situation," Spielberg said.
Residents found out AT&T needed the generator after Austin Energy cut the electricity that was powering its equipment.
KVUE reached out to Austin Energy. A spokesperson told us the power was cut because of an issue with the connection on AT&T's side, which was not up to code.