It's meant to drive away vagrants. Instead, it's driving neighbourhood residents crazy.

A TD Canada Trust ATM at Front Street East and Jarvis Street in downtown Toronto has been emitting an ear-splitting, high-pitched noise continuously for the past month — and repeated attempts to nix the noise have fallen on deaf ears.

Local resident Gary Raitch says he can hear it in his apartment.

"It's just a nauseating annoying noise that doesn't stop," Raitch said. "I can hear it in my den, in the middle of the night when I'm on the computer. If there's not much traffic outside, I can actually hear the noise."

The noise is called "a vagrant deterrent system" and is meant to keep vagrants from hunkering down inside the ATM booth.

But for people living within earshot of the St. Lawrence Market it's an earsore.

"It's a nuisance to the neighbourhood, to everyone who comes to the market every day of the week," said market manager George Carvelli.

Carvelli said the noise started a month ago. Since then, tenants, staff and neighbours have complained.

"Initially we thought … this was an alarm of some kind and we called [TD Canada Trust] and said 'Come and check this out.'"

The bank called back a couple of weeks later but no one from the bank ever came to check out the alarm, Carvelli said.

Carvelli says he can't take it anymore.

"I'm asking them to deal with this ASAP. I don't want to go through another weekend with vendors and tenants complaining about the noise."

After a call from CBC News, TD Canada Trust promised to turn the alarm off during the day and keep it on only at night. A spokesperson says it took the bank a while to get back to Carvelli because it could only reach his answering machine.