Forced to leave town

Forced to leave town

Area's awash in radiation, couple says

BRIAN WILFORD OCEANSIDE STAR / THE STAR 
OCTOBER 24, 2013 12:00 AM

        

Benita and Marcus Schluschen met a reporter in the Parksville Community Park, where Benita, wearing a hat with radio-frequency shielding, can tolerate the radiation levels. Marcus shows a radiation-measuring device they carry with them.  Photograph by: BRIAN WILFORD/OCEANSIDE STAR

The electromagnetic radiation in Parksville and Qualicum Beach simply became too much for Benita Schluschen to bear.

She and husband Marcus had done what they could to their Chartwell home to shield her electrohy persensitivity.

They have all non-digital devices, including clocks. They not only don't have cell phones but they got rid of their cordless phone, as well.

They have an old-fashioned non-flatscreen TV. "Even so, we sit quite a distance away," says Benita.

They have a computer but they shield it and only Marcus uses it, doing all their online research on EHS and then reporting his findings to Benita.

But they couldn't control the outside radiation from cell phones, cell towers and WiFi.

"It seemed like all our neighbours had WiFi," says Marcus. And all the stores, as well. "It's a quick shop for me in the store," says Benita.

Grocery stores are so full of microwave radiation that it's cooking the food, says Marcus. "It is reduced in quality considerably."

The emissions from a cell tower across from the Parksville Dairy Queen are "absolutely massive," he says.

Benita, who wears radio-frequency shielding in her hat when she goes out, can tell right away when a store has WiFi and a meter they carry with them proves her right every time.

She can even tell when someone is carrying a cell phone. She feels pressure in her head "tighter and tighter," like someone is using a blood-pressuremeasuring device, she says. She gets heart palpitations, has trouble focussing, gets tinnitus and her legs become rubbery.

She suffers from hypoxia, oxygen deprivation caused by a thickening of the blood.

In fact, we all suffer from it, she says. Blood cells become clumped "like money rolls" after just 90 seconds of exposure to electro-magnetic radiation, she says. It's just a matter of sensitivity and tolerance.

Benita says about 35% of the population suffers to some extent from microwave radiation and 3% suffers severely.

Symptoms can include tingling and numbness in the extremities, wobbly legs and "brain fog," she says, but most people wouldn't attribute these to radiation.

The Schluschens had been in Chartwell for four years but they had to move. They talked about moving to a rural area but Marcus has a photography business, so they had to be in a town. They chose Port Alberni, where there are "lower levels" of radiation, says Benita.

Their home in town is on a double-sized lot with a nature park across the street.

It came with a Smart Meter, which they have surrounded inside and out with a Faraday box, which shields electromagnetic fields.

The Schluschens are among some 60,000 British Columbians who are refusing the micro waveradio frequency-emitting devices, which they say radiate even when they are not transmitting.

Starting in December, they'll pay what Benita calls the $35-a-month "extortion fee" to have their meter turned off and read manually.

"We feel betrayed by the government, by the utility, by the medical community for allowing it," says Marcus.

"Our rights have been usurped by the Liberal government and by B.C. Hydro," he says. "But this goes beyond political affiliation. It's a health issue.

"By now it's not a mistake any more; it's an outright lie," he says. "They deliberately misrepresent the facts, and that's what I find so distasteful.

"Democracy is on very shaky grounds."

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