&@%*dy Alarms!
Posted: 05 Sep 2013, 10:10[rant mode ON]
I am cream crackered.
Last night at about 10:20 some sort of alarm went off. It was not a house type alarm, more a long whistle, and it was a LOT louder than usual - loud enough to hurt one's ears!
A few of us went out, but we could not see a visible indication of a house alarm, and we could not pinpoint it as it seemed to be all around us. Because we have areas of open woodland and greens, plus unlit garage areas, none of us were tempted to go find the source of the alarm so I came in and phoned the police on the non-emergency number and the operator could hear the racket over the phone.
They were not interested - no crime being committed, so they passed me on to the noise nuisance team at Environmental Health. They were not interested either because I could not give them an address where the noise was coming from and anyway they didn't have the resources to investigate. We were stuck, and the neighbours were not that pleased.
I eventually went to bed at about ten past midnight, but with the racket still going on it was impossible to sleep.
At 01:18, according to my bedroom clock, four police cars turned up with lights flashing and sirens blaring. One blocked the entry to our little estate, another blocked the road just outside my place, effectively cutting the estate in half, and the other two went down the street. About twenty minutes later a builder's van turned up and shortly after everything went quiet - peace at last!
This is the tale. One of the houses is being refurbished and the builders had pushed a trailer full of tools and materials to the side. This trailer was alarmed, boy was it alarmed! Something, possibly a fox, had probably jumped on to it, or the tow-bar, and set the tumbler off - there was no sign of any attempted break in. The neighbours had bombarded the police with complaints, so much so that they eventually had to act and the builder was called to immobilise the alarm.
Had the police listened and acted in the first place there would have been no need for them to turn up (expensively) mob-handed in the early hours as though a riot had gone off, but, hey, what do I know?
[/rant mode OFF]
I am cream crackered.
Last night at about 10:20 some sort of alarm went off. It was not a house type alarm, more a long whistle, and it was a LOT louder than usual - loud enough to hurt one's ears!
A few of us went out, but we could not see a visible indication of a house alarm, and we could not pinpoint it as it seemed to be all around us. Because we have areas of open woodland and greens, plus unlit garage areas, none of us were tempted to go find the source of the alarm so I came in and phoned the police on the non-emergency number and the operator could hear the racket over the phone.
They were not interested - no crime being committed, so they passed me on to the noise nuisance team at Environmental Health. They were not interested either because I could not give them an address where the noise was coming from and anyway they didn't have the resources to investigate. We were stuck, and the neighbours were not that pleased.
I eventually went to bed at about ten past midnight, but with the racket still going on it was impossible to sleep.
At 01:18, according to my bedroom clock, four police cars turned up with lights flashing and sirens blaring. One blocked the entry to our little estate, another blocked the road just outside my place, effectively cutting the estate in half, and the other two went down the street. About twenty minutes later a builder's van turned up and shortly after everything went quiet - peace at last!
This is the tale. One of the houses is being refurbished and the builders had pushed a trailer full of tools and materials to the side. This trailer was alarmed, boy was it alarmed! Something, possibly a fox, had probably jumped on to it, or the tow-bar, and set the tumbler off - there was no sign of any attempted break in. The neighbours had bombarded the police with complaints, so much so that they eventually had to act and the builder was called to immobilise the alarm.
Had the police listened and acted in the first place there would have been no need for them to turn up (expensively) mob-handed in the early hours as though a riot had gone off, but, hey, what do I know?
[/rant mode OFF]
) we have a house alarm here that goes off regularly, only I've never found the source, till this afternoon, when the alarm went off in the oak tree. Some ruddy lorikeet has learnt to mimic it. 
xxx