23 October 2011

Nothing can be done about house alarms

| kakosi
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Until last night I assumed that if an alarm at a house was going off constantly a person could call the ACT Police and have someone come out and investigate. But apparently this is not so. The police do not attend unless you can tell them you’ve seen secondary evidence of a break in with your own eyes. I certainly wasn’t going to take the advice of the policeman over the phone and go next door at 2.30am in the morning to look for “secondary” evidence as I live alone and the owner of the house has a mental illness which makes him aggressive towards myself and other neighbours.

I’ve just spent since last night being kept awake and bothered by an alarm which no one will turn off. I’ve called Canberra Connect regarding the noise – but they won’t send rangers out about alarms, I called the Fire Brigade and they did come out to make sure it wasn’t a fire alarm, found out it was hooked up to an outdoor sensor and was going off every time a bird/animal/anybody passed it, and found no evidence that the guy was at home – but they said they aren’t allowed to turn it off. At least the firemen said they’d inform the police that the alarm was very loud and disturbing neighbours.

Anyone here know who I can call to get this thing turned off?

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We ended up calling the firies when our neighbours surprisingly loud smoke alarm malfuctioned, I recall that we had tried police and various Gov departments, and got a result from the fire service. They turned up with sirens and flashing lights, looked to see if anyone was home, which we all knew there weren’t and turned off the power. Neighbours a bit disgruntled by the defrosting freezer on their return, although our sleep was less disrupted. Just need to sort out their yapping dog now!

I’d go with disconnecting their power and letting the battery run out. Or the brick through the window and call teh police job.

Clearly soemthing needs to be done about this. In NSW, a neighbour’s alarm went off years ago, someone must have called the cops, they came, stooged about the house, then came into my place and demanded to know how long it’d been going for (the cops were somewhat disgruntled, plainly). They hoped it had been going for longer than 15 minutes, so I helpfully agreed (and it had). The cop then said happily that he’d write them a ticket for that, and off they went.

The idea that an alarm can be blasting away for hours or days is a joke. I dunno, in addition to the other anti-social suggestions, what about a carefully-deployed can of Space Invader?

What Henry said.
Kill the power at the meter box. The battery backup will only last a few hours if the siren/strobe are activating.
You may get the satisfaction of revenge knowing that the contents of his fridge will probably spoil.

I thought there were regulations.legislation as such that prevented alarms from producing an audible alarm for longer than 10 mins or so?

wildturkeycanoe6:01 am 24 Oct 11

Kakosi maybe you can have the police attend as there are concerns the neighbor hasn’t been seen or heard from and could be injured or dead. Remember the story of a woman in Sydney who was dead for quite some time and the neighbors didn’t know? Proactive community concern might stop that from happening again.

ExFeds said :

ANSWER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ve tried the ACT Government environment protection people and they won’t visit the house unless someone is home and the man hasn’t been home for at least two weeks. They also insist that you are home when they arrive to check out the noise so I’ll have to wait until he arrives home, then call and hope that they have the time to attend. Not great.

Also, it’s a waste of time and dangerous to try and talk to a person who is a) aggressive and b) has a mental illness.

It’s incredible to me that the ACT Government has a fruit tree inspector, who has the right to go onto your properties and inspect trees at any time but no one to turn off a friggin alarm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ANSWER !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Audible alarms were off the Police call out list about 10 years ago (Australia Wide).

If you want action, contact the EPA and if you could be bother arguing, the matter still falls under the Police enforcement of summary offences; they can still issue fines for this. It falls under Residential noise complaints.

WHAT YOU NEED TO DO !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Firstly speak with the owner of the alleged offending alarm and if this is unsuccessful, contact the EPA and they will recommend to the owner of the alleged offending alarm that it be muted, generally.

SEE PAGE TWO OF LINK BELOW !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://www.environment.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0013/144112/NoiseinResidentialAreasNov2010web.pdf

IMHO, If the alarm goes off more than once, it is by definition a secondary (tertiary, quaternary, etc.) indication. (Captain pedant to the rescue!)

Having an external motion sensor on a house alarm is a tad odd though.

Spray foam over the sensor is sadly illegal.

troll-sniffer. I’d strongly suggest the laser-lite ear plugs. They’re much more comfortable.

The best story i have heard about a similar situation, is where the guy whos alarm had been going off all weekend returned home from holidays to find that the alarm siren had been ripped out. No-one on the street had andy knowledge of what had happened.

Get it?

Just walk down the side of the house and flick the circuit breaker?

Makes you wonder why anyone bothers having an alarm…

wildturkeycanoe5:45 pm 23 Oct 11

Find the offending item located near a blue flashing light and there are several ways to disable it. Some suggestions are brute force with large metal object or liquid penetration from garden hose. Had the same thing up the road from our house one night and the police told me the same thing, they had no authority to investigate. Unfortunately there was no phone number or label to say who the security company was so we just had to put up with it for a few hours and eventually ti turned off. We did investigate to make sure it wasn’t a fire and that there weren’t any broken windows etc, but I agree it shouldn’t be allowed. What’s the point of an audible alarm, if noone around can do anything about it?

The police will break up a party thats too loud but i’d assume that an alarm would be louder than that.

I guess if they arent willing to do anything u could launch a case in the small claims court and sue the owner over a good night sleep?

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