Couple’s Lawsuit Claims Pokémon Go Has Made Their Neighborhood Unsafe

Image courtesy of Robert Couse-Baker

Pokémon Go has changed not only the way the game’s players see the world — a virtual landscape filled with collectible monsters — but it’s also changed the way other people experience it, as well. Like the couple suing Niantic and Nintendo, claiming that their formerly quiet neighborhood has been made unsafe with all the rampaging hordes of Pokémon Go players.

The couples says their lakeside neighborhood in St. Clair Shores, MI used to be the kind of place where a dozen or so residents could take leisurely strolls at sunset in the park, Bloomberg reports, until Pokémon Go came along and its players turned the area into a nuisance and a safety threat.

“We don’t feel safe sitting on our porch,” the husband and wife said in their lawsuit filed in San Francisco, adding that they’ve found players hiding in the bushes at dusk, only to emerge after police close the park.

They say their “once quiet street degenerated into a nightmare,” alleging that players park in front of driveways, trample all over the lawn, and peep into windows.

The woman says in one incident, she’d asked a player to leave her property, and was told to shut up “or else,” the complaint says.

The lawsuit accuses Niantic and Nintendo of creating a nuisance that the companies have used for their own profit. The couple seeks class-action status to all represent property owners in the U.S.who have faced similar difficulties with Pokémon players.

Neither Niantic nor Nintendo provided Bloomberg with a comment on the complaint.

Pokémon Sued by Couple Claiming Neighborhood Unsafe With Gamers [Bloomberg]

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