Laboratory Rodents Negatively Affected by Construction Environment

This report describes rodents in a laboratory animal facility that was adversely affected by a noisy environment during construction work. There was much noise and vibration as well as dust caused by the drilling and hammering. The noise levels, frequencies, and length of time when occurring in the drilling and hammering, were all measured. The drilling showed noise levels ranging from 50-90 decibels (dB) (A-filter, A), and the hammering presented 60-70 dB(A). Some researchers raised problems regarding animal experiments, including skin injuries resulted from self-mutilation, and increase of mortality. This gives useful information to people who plan to renovate laboratory animal facilities as it is a very rare case.