SE23 Forum

Does anyone have any advice regarding an errant house alarm that is going off throughout the day and night?

The alarm in question is at a house at the brow of Brockley View (I know there are at least two other forum members who live on/around Brockley View like myself), where the owners of said property have seemingly gone on holiday whilst external building work is being undertaken.

It looks like the scaffolding that has been erected as part of this work is somehow triggering the house alarm to go off.

This has been going on for 4 days now - day and night - and by night I mean well past midnight. Harrowing as I'm sure you can imagine for those living in the surrounding area, considering the high-pitched alarm runs for 10 minutes each time and kicks off every 3-4 hours.

I was talking to a fellow resident yesterday but we weren't sure what course of action to take - I don't think this comes under police jurisdiction?

We were tempted to just walk over and knock the flaming thing off the wall but in the end decided that criminal damage is not the way forward

Any advice much appreciated.
McB

Keep a record of alarm times and contact noise abatement at the Council:
http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/en...fault.aspx

It's a "Burglar" alarm, call the police. It's your civic duty.












And the police will have more powers to shut it up than you do.

Londondrz, I had a similar experience to mcbain23 and had the same thought. I did initially report it to the police (101) but was told that unless I was actually witnessing a burglary taking place that it was more appropriate to contact the council.

Interesting. We have one opposite that went off fairly frequently. The first dozen times it was irritating, after that it became a pain. I called the police who said they were aware that there was an issue and due to the high volume of calls received about it they would "have a word" with the owner.

It has gone off once or twice in the last 2 years.

Ours went off the other day, a rat had chewed through a cable, police were there in 2 minutes.

I wonder if we should contact the scaffold company as I am sure it is something that they have done. It was doing it all last week. It is pretty annoying. And what's more it obviously doesn't link to a contact centre as no-one has called to do anything about the 'burglar' that has set it off. A good advert to burglars that there is n one at home and the police won't be coming anytime soon.

Could you get hold of the owners and ask them to immobilise their alarm or authorise the builders to do this? The builders should have their contact details, if none of the neighbours do.

FWIW the owners are back now and it's stopped going off.

Unless you are witnessing a burglary in process or the alarm is a centrally monitored alarm then don't bother calling the police. If it has been going for more than 20 minutes call the council:

http://www.lewisham.gov.uk/myservices/en...larms.aspx

Bensonby, if my alarm goes off I hope someone calls the police. Burglars are not known for being highly visible.

The police won't routinely deploy to reports of an alarm going off unless someone has also witnessed something suspicious.

They will deploy to centrally-monitored alarms as invariably they will be called the second it is activated.

The policy, rationale behind it, and details about different types of alarms are here: http://content.met.police.uk/Article/Sec...0011145584