Re: Porch lights
From: Sharon Villines (sharonsharonvillines.com)
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2017 09:03:04 -0700 (PDT)
> On Apr 1, 2017, at 11:37 AM, Elizabeth Magill <pastorlizm [at] gmail.com> 
> wrote:
> 
> Outside of legal restrictions, my experience is that this issue is one
> on which you can't actually find consensus. Folk who are afraid of it
> being too dark aren't moved by evidence that less light is better.
> People who are annoyed by the light can't understand what the issue is
> for folk who want it.

Part of this is the differences in vision. I was having a discussion with one 
of our members about where the sign on the door of the bathroom in the front 
hall should be. I wanted it on the door; she, on the wall beside the door. If 
the door is open, she said, no one would know it was the bathroom. My argument 
was that if the door was open, they could see it was the bathroom because what 
other room has a toilet in it?

It turned out that she couldn’t see the white fixtures inside the room if the 
lights weren’t on. She couldn’t see at all what was totally obvious to me. And 
she is not a person who is aware that she has a vision problem. When I was 
explaining that I was in danger of tripping when children left toys on the 
floor where I didn’t expect them to be, she was surprised that anyone would 
ever walk into a room without turning on the lights. I rarely turn them on 
unless I’m reading or doing needlework.

Another friend just told me that in a color test, her children could see 5 
different yellow squares in a large quare when she could only see one. I’ve 
learned myself that as eyes age it is harder to see the difference in coloring 
between one stair and the next. They are all grey if the light isn’t bright 
enough.

So it does have to be taken seriously. But the Dark Sky site does explain the 
health benefits of having darkness for periods of the 24 our cycle, apart from 
supposed crime prevention.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org





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