Amazon Delivery Drones Are Ruining My Neighborhood

Ferndale — It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… actually another Amazon drone buzzing over Southeast Michigan. Don’t like it? Too bad. They’re not going anywhere and apparently there’s nothing anyone can do about it.

For those unfamiliar, communities surrounding the Hazel Park and Pontiac Amazon warehouses make up about 20% of the locations in the country that can get drone deliveries. The radius is 7.5 miles and Amazon has an entire section of its website where people can go and select products to be dropped off via drone.

Things like band-aids, AirPods and even a bottle of soap can all fit inside the drone and fly to your home in roughly an hour for an additional fee.

They glide through the sky between 115 and 400 feet and once they get to your home, descend to 13 feet and drop the package somewhere near your front porch, and hopefully not on your car.

It seems harmless and convenient for people are busy working from home or have small kids and can’t escape to pick up an item from the store. But for those of us living underneath their daily travels, it’s a nightmare.

I live in Northeast Ferndale, about two miles from the Hazel Park Amazon facility. The drones start early in the morning and are much louder than you can imagine. I can hear them from inside my home, as can my dogs, who bark nonstop until the buzzing is out of their earshot.

In a neighborhood where my neighbors have “Tax the Rich” lawn signs (ironically sold by Amazon), the drones have caused quite the uproar. Residents are already clamoring for City Council to ban gas leaf blowers due to noise like they’ve done in Ann Arbor, so the constant buzzing from drones pushes all kinds of buttons.

After countless complaints, the city finally made a statement this week and said their hands are tied, thanks to the Federal Aviation Administration.

The FAA regulates Amazon drones just like they do airplanes. They have specific guidelines that need to be followed in order to operate, and as long as they travel under those conditions, they're good to go. Basically, just like a body of water cannot be owned by a landowner, cities do not own the air. The FAA does.

And just like an airplane, if you mess with an Amazon drone, you can be charged federally.

If you have a problem with that, you're instructed to reach out to Amazon directly but to nobody's surprise, they aren’t listening. I emailed and wouldn’t you know it, it’s unmonitored!

No longer do you need to live near an airport to experience constant overhead distractions.

It’s only a matter of time until Flock and Amazon team up and are forever monitoring our every move “for our safety”.