When Rachel Rue moved to Lawrenceville six years ago, she would sit on her front porch every morning and drink coffee or work in her garden.

But since Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh opened in April 2009 a few blocks away, she doesn't want to go outside.

Rue is among dozens of residents within a three-block radius of the hospital who have complained about a hum coming from fans atop the $625 million complex on Penn Avenue between 44th and 45th streets.

"It was so beautiful and so therapeutic. Now it's stressful. Literally walking outside my house is unpleasant," said Rue, who lives on Sherrod Street. "For the entire rest of my life, if I live in Lawrenceville, which I was planning to do, I'm not going to get a single bit of quiet. ... I feel like this is a complete assault."

Paul Cunningham, who lives on 44th Street, said the fans create "a constant white noise."

"The closer you get the louder it is," he said, "and the city environment tends to shape the sound. If you move two feet right or left, the sound will change."

Eric Hess, vice president of operations at Children's and the executive in charge of the hospital's construction, has been aware of the noise since at least September 2008, when officials began looking at ways to mute the sound.

The exhaust fans are associated with the building's HVAC system, and the hospital has paid "probably in excess of $250,000" to work with acoustical experts and engineers in an attempt to mitigate the sound, Hess said. This spring, they tried to wrap the fan housings in insulated acoustical barriers, but tests -- and neighbors -- say the noise is still prevalent.

"It hasn't been something we've put a budget on and said we can't do it or we can give it a try," Hess said. "It's been two years, but we haven't been ignoring everybody for two years."

When Children's moved to Lawrenceville from Oakland, officials promised they would be good neighbors. Neighborhood leaders say things must change.

"It's a big issue," said Councilman Patrick Dowd. "It's a very serious and real thing. ... We have to keep working with Children's Hospital. We have to figure out how to fix this."

Lauren Byrne, executive director of Lawrenceville United, a nonprofit community group, said the noise is "an issue that everyone's sort of sick of."

Hess said the hospital continues to look for ideas, but the options are running out.

"It's not (finished) from our perspective, but I can't say we have an idea that we're about to implement that should give everyone a tremendous amount of hope," he said.

Meanwhile, neighbors continue to lose sleep.

"It's definitely a quality-of-life issue," said Derrick Pitard, 45, of Sherrod Street. "I'm frustrated, and I know my neighbors are, too."

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