Wind turbine nightmare
74-year-old Pat Spence from Barrhill in Ayrshire has to drive somewhere quiet to be able to sleep after her home was surrounded by more than 180 wind turbines.
Wind farms turn woman's home into “torture chamber”
Pat Spence says she has been forced to sleep in her car after 180 turbines were built.
By Emma O'Neill, Saul DeMoritz and Morag Robertson
Pat Spence says she has been forced to sleep in her car as the effects of wind farm syndrome make it impossible to sleep at her home on Dochroyle Farm.
Ms Spence first noticed the noise after waking one night with heart palpitations.
She believed she was having a heart attack but after her anxiety subsided she noticed the noise of the wind turbines.
Ms Spence believes these heart palpitations and excruciating pains in her ears and head are due to the 180 turbines built within a few miles around her hilltop farm.
The wind farms that surround her farm are Mark Hill Wind Farm, Kilgallioch Wind Farm and Arecleoch Wind Farm.
Wind Farms produce noise that sounds like traffic in the distance or aeroplanes passing overhead.
People with symptoms like Pat believe they are being affected by frequencies much lower those most people can hear.
Ms Spence said: “I feel as though I've lost control of my entire life.
“They've turned the place I wanted to spend the rest of my life in into a prison with its own encapsulated torture chamber.”
Ms Spence regularly drives miles away from her house to sleep in her car after being unable to nod off at night.
She added: “I can't put it on the market because it would be morally so wrong to sell these problems on to somebody else.
“Nobody would want to buy it anyway, because nobody in their right mind would want these problems.”
Retired GP Angela Armstrong said: "I've seen several people now who are suffering symptoms or who say they're suffering symptoms and therefore I've had to investigate them.
“People who are waking up at night feeling very anxious for no apparent reason, who are getting palpitations, chest pain, insomnia - they just can't sleep.”
ScottishPower Renewables says it is in regular contact with Ms Spence and has a programme of ongoing noise monitoring to ensure its wind farms operate in full compliance with the conditions of their consents.