Just the burglar alarm.
At 4:00 AM.
We don't use the damn thing. It came with the house, and the account was deactivated because we aren't interested in security systems and never renewed it. But we left the equipment in place in case we ever sell the house to someone who thinks they are a plus. And we didn't want to patch all the holes we would have made in the drywall.
Now we know that, when the battery is low, the alarm bleeps...alarmingly, while the indicator reads "BATTERY LOW!" Great. Thanks for the info. A-ha! I have a code. I got it from the previous owners and wrote it in my planner in 2005. I don't really mean to save planners, but it just kind of happens, and now I'm glad. I rummaged blindly in my nightstand and put the code in, which made the alarm stop.
Yes. Back to bed.
For 5 minutes.
I called the alarm company. They were very nice, but seemed unsure how to proceed. They put me on hold for a long time while they consulted about it. While waiting, I amused myself by alternately punching the code in when the alarm blew every five minutes and trying to rip the keypad off the wall. I did get some pieces to come off, but not enough to make it shut up.
Finally Mr. Nice Guy came on and told me that he'd like to help me, but I wasn't an account holder, so his hands were tied. I explained to him that any guidance he might offer as to how to most effectively destroy the thing would be good enough.
He guided me to the basement, where I found the (Holy Grail!) secret box he was describing, with the guilty battery inside. I was to unplug the alarm box and disconnect the battery. I told him that I loved him and hung up. I had unplugged it when Si showed up and told me that I had in fact unplugged the water softener. We couldn't find where the alarm plugged in, so we turned off all the power in the house, disconnected the battery, pulled out some other random important-looking wires and went to bed. That was it. Now we're good, except the phones don't work.
8 comments:
and why do you exactly think you dont need such a device?
We had a similar situation at our previous house. Our alarm kept going off because spiders were building webs in the motion detector. The last straw was the time the alarm went off when we were on vacation and our dear neighbor had to go into the house in the middle of the night to investigate.
That was the point when we decided to cancel the alarm service and just hope the ADT sign out front would scare off any would be burglars.
Ah, Superhero...Because some little kid would get up in the night to go to the bathroom and trip a motion sensor. Or we would be out of town and a piece of paper would fall off a shelf and the thing would go off and wake up all the neighbors. Like my friend Shirley, we still have a sign that says, "This house protected by Peal Alarm Systems."
Our house came with an alarm system too. We didn't sign up to activate it, but found that it still works. We turn it on when we leave and if someone were to come in, the alarm would sound but of course, no security company would be called. But, the sound alone could wake the dead for miles and scare the hell out of the burglar.
Ours beeps now and then too. Bing just pops a new battery in. Of course, she knows where the battery thingee is in the basement while I haven't a clue....
..and it had to happen on a Monday...
Oh no! And all this began at 4am? How unsociable!
I'm so sorry, Kate, but this had me laughing out loud.
I've also been woken up in the dead of night in a blind panic and after a desperate search of the house smashed open the alarm souder with a hammer and ripped out the thing that was making all the racket.
When the guy came to install the new one he was impressed with the level of violence used.
**Chirp**
**Chirp**
I've been here too!! Totally sucks.
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