Milwaukee e-scooters causing problems for some residents

MILWAUKEE - Residents in Riverwest are sounding off about electric scooters.

The issue? The scooters’ alarm system.

The permanent return of the scooters was just announced this week, and now they are popping up all across the city.

SIGN UP TODAY: Get daily headlines, breaking news emails from FOX6 News

Already, some say they have noticed and heard a design flaw on some of the scooters.

Instead of sheep, John Shea said Tuesday night, May 22, he was counting scooter beeps. He said the noise continued for almost 10 hours.

"I didn’t sleep at all last night," Shea said. "I went out at 12:30 a.m. and I was going to try to pick it up and move it, but it was too heavy for me." 

He lives near the intersection of Pierce and Townsend in the neighborhood.

"Everyone in my building was up all night long, so anybody that has to sleep and get up the next day, this is a real issue," Shea said.

The noise also reached Eileen Nyholt’s eardrums.

"It was loud, and my window was closed, and I could hear it," Nyholt said.

After a night of restless sleep, she said her neighbor contacted spin to turn the alarm off. She then called the city and company herself.

"They said they could take the scooter out of our neighborhood, like all of the scooters," she said. "And I said, ‘well I don’t really want to be prohibitive on people that need to use scooters, but I would like for your alarms not to wake everybody up in the middle of the night.’"

The issue also made its way to the Riverwest Facebook page. Someone dealing with a Lime scooter posted, "It wouldn’t stop chirping. I ended up turning it off with a hammer."

Lime told FOX6 its scooters do not beep unless there is an issue.

FREE DOWNLOAD: Get breaking news alerts in the FOX6 News app for iOS or Android.

As for Spin, the company said the alarm can be triggered on scooters tipped or tilted.

"We will be altering their configuration shortly to remedy this to prevent continuous beeping moving forward," a Spin spokesperson said.

Nyholt said she is also concerned about where the scooters are left. She has started building a case for the neighborhood. 

"The problem is that the scooters don’t have a lot of regulation," she said.

In the meantime, the city said it is investigating the beeping with both companies.