Disturbing the peace
Burglar alarms are nothing but trouble. At 1 am on Thursday, I was woken by a piercing siren; the burglar alarm on the front of the house was shrieking away. This was a bit perplexing because I have never actually set the alarm, since we’ve had builders in and out the whole time. I got dressed and went out into the rain to check that it really was our alarm, and found to my consternation that it was. There’s nothing quite like making a good impression on the neighbours as soon as you move inâthey must all want to kill me. I looked at the keypad to try to disable it, but there was no power going to it at allâno lights on and no-one home. In desperationâand not thinking too clearly that early in the morningâI tried shutting off the power at the fuse box. Of course, if it was that easy to silence an alarm, burglars would do it all the time. Duh.
Plan B was to phone our landlord, but the answer machine was on (not unreasonably at that hour). And so, on to Plan C. I phoned the police to let them know that if anyone phoned in about the alarm, they were not to break the door down to apprehend the non-existent burglar. It was obviously a busy night, and I had to wait in a phone queue for some time before speaking to someone on the help-desk. I burbled on in a tired, tale-of-malfunctioning-alarm stream of consciousness for some time, ending with, “…so is there anything else I can do?” There was a slight pause and the officer on the line said dryly, “I was just waiting for you to finish that sentence.” Unfortunately, he told me what I had suspectedâI was just going to have to wait until the backup battery in the siren ran down. Now, the batteries in torches run down the minute you need them, but that backup battery had real staying power. At 5am it was still warbling away merrily, and I had still only had an hour and a half of sleep. Nothing but trouble…
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A great story to read but a miserable situation for you I can imagine. Maybe it's one of these "I'll laugh at this in a month or so".----- I hope that your neighbours haven't risen up to slay you or anything. I'd have hard words with whoever is responsible for installing the alarm, apparently you are responsible for a breach of the peace if it goes off. I had some friends (from the Birmingham area funnily enough) who had to miss a wedding one weekend, while they waited in for security firm, because their burglar alarm had malfunctioned a couple of times in previous days, and the police were threatening to prosecute them if it happened again.
by Keith @ 15/08/2004 12:09 pm • Permalink •
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I read this post with great empathy as this has happened to me - in two different properties - three or four times in the course of the last year, despite having had what feels like countless alarm engineers out at both places.
The first time I went through all the same motions (ie: trying to cut off the power at the fuse box at 3am in a state of disorientation and panic, doh!) and eventually called out a 24hr alarm service person. The guy who arrived was, well large and smelly although incredibly nice. Our alarm box was difficult to get to because of the design of the house at the front so he had to make even more noise arranging his van on the pavement, sandwiched between the house and my neighbours car, in order to support the ladders. Up he went to disable the alarm box, and on the way back down the ladders, somehow, his jogging pants (under which there was no underwear) came down! eugh! like this whole episode wasn't bad enough!
by Sally @ 16/08/2004 10:09 am • Permalink •
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Ella: Perhaps
Luckily, the neighbours have all been very understanding. Actually, we have some rather wonderful neighbours.
Keith: I think that the company installing it has probably gone bust a long time ago. It's very old, and I'm sure that this was a factor in the malfunction.
Sally: Eeeuwww! Poor you! I don't think I could have coped with the sight of flabby buttocks as well.
by bsag @ 16/08/2004 6:08 pm • Permalink •
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Once the back-up battery and so on have died though, BSAG, it shouldn't cause you any more problems. Is the property rented, or owned? If it's rented, talk to the letting agents, as it's actually their problem, and that of the landlord/house-owner, and as such you can leave it up to them.
What I would advise though is making sure you also inform the letting agents in writing, and keep a copy (it's possible to even post it to yourself, so that it's postmarked with a specific date, then don't open that envelope - voila, sealed,dated, proof that you informed them) so that should there be any hassles in future, you've got evidence that it's not your problem, and you've taken reasonable action to prevent it happening again.
by Lyle @ 18/08/2004 8:08 am • Permalink •
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Doh. "Calling the landlord" - that pretty much sums up the "of course it's rented, Lyle, you twadge" response.
Anyway, the rest of the comment still applies. grin Actually, if it's through a letting agency, they should have a repair-line type thing so that things can be sorted out in an emergency. If it's private landlord, well, fingers crossed they're reasonable.
by Lyle @ 18/08/2004 8:08 am • Permalink •
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Lyle: Actually our landlord is our friend, and he is very reasonable. He was very apologetic about the alarm problem, and got the builders to ruthlessly sever every connection between the alarm and the power supply. So it won't be going off again until it's replaced with a new unit. Unless it's demonically possessed. :-o
by bsag @ 18/08/2004 5:08 pm • Permalink •
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