it's not melkbos

dec 01 2005

it's not melkbos

yesterday the armed response company called me at the office to let me know that the alarm went off and it shows zone 1 was triggered. that's the front door...

i call ed and find out if he's at home and didn't have time to switch off the alarm? ed's not at home, ed's on site in bothasig. shit, my stomach sinks.

i phone the armed response guys back and let them know that it's not anyone who has authority to enter the premises, go with caution and guns drawn... ie. shoot the ****ers when you get there.

i leave work to go there and check it out. already i'm skimming what sort of damage control has got be done when i get there. oh shit... ed and i got a new tv and dvd player this w/end, i haven't got those insured yet. at that stage i started driving like a maniac in seriously buggered up traffic trying to get all the way from observatory to bloubergsands in a flash. complete and utter madness.

armed response phones back. i've since made it onto the m5, about a quarter of the way there. "nothing to worry about ma'am, the house is all locked up and secure". i'm still coming through to check it out. why? it's silly but i've lived in a village most my life, a place where i never used to lock my car, i kept sound equipment (worth about r10 000 - r15 000) in it over night after coming back from gigs at 3am in the morning, too tired to unload. i've never been burgled in my life before. the plain and simple of it all, i was worried and wanted to check it out for myself.

when i got there, the place was still locked up. the armed response guy (brendan, very nice) put my mind at ease about it all. but the reason for the alarm activating is weird. they said after power cuts it might send a signal to the control room when it comes back on and there's been quite a few power failures in the area recently and yesterday too. but the power never went out. how do i know? the hi-fi was still on when i got home and the time still correct. both of those things debunk the 'power cut' story. still wondering why the alarm would've gone off! any ideas anyone?

today, the telly and dvd player are getting insured...

Posted by sarah | personal

comments

sarah | 2005-12-08 09:55:31

that might be possible, because i was wondering why the alarm wasn't still going off when i got there.

i'm no expert and i guess i might have expected the alarm to keep going off like a car alarm... until it was finally switched off by the owner? i guess house alarms are little different from car alarms though?

warrenski | 2005-12-08 09:24:29

Here's a theory: perhaps it was someone else's alarm that was triggered, and the control room got a little confused and thought that it was yours?

sarah | 2005-12-07 14:36:56

so basically something is faulty?

because i even tried to shove something (like tin foil, yes i did, because years ago i saw macgyver do it!) between the magnetic sensors on the door, with no results whatsoever. it didn't break the connection.

then i tried pushing the top of the door to see how far i could push it, maybe breaking the magnetic connection. that didn't work either. it seems you have about 30mm play with the magnetic connectors!

then i tried lots of paper between the connectors. nothing aswell.

so i'm still stumped. no-one yet has offered me a reasonable explanation for the alarm activating...

warrenski | 2005-12-07 09:51:38

Sarah, I know the feeling - it's happened to me twice! I didn't race back home to check though, I just trusted the armed response dude's judgement. In my case though, it was the one passive infrared sensor (up in the corner of the ceiling) that was triggered. "Possibly a spider crawling over the lens" they told me. Nonsense! I opened up the box with the sensor, and found no creature. I sprayed doom around it as extra precaution. The alarm still triggered, even at night (with closed blinds), so the "perhaps it's a big reflection off a passing car" theory is void too.

I usually arm the downstairs section at night (to put my mind at rest). Once the alarm triggered at 3am and I s**t my pants not knowing if there was someone inside the house downstairs or whether it was a false alarm.

To get a dude out there to look at it would set me back R400, and I'm not prepared to pay that. Instead, I bypass that particular sensor whenever I arm the house (which is silly).

Since your alarm is triggered by a sensor on your front door, it's even more strange. Alarm systems have reserve power, so it couldn't be caused by a power cut. The ant theory is also nonsense, since the door sensors are magnetic and not optical (and it's not like a mere ant will offset a magnetic field to that degree!). Not sure if you've ever noticed but you can open a door quite a bit before the magnetic field is broken, triggering the alarm. If everything was locked up... verrrry weird.

sarah | 2005-12-02 07:17:13

no windows were open and we're petless. plus it was as if some-one had opened the front door, that happened to be firmly shut... the armed response guys reckoned that it might have been an ant. i laughed and didn't take them seriously, until another mate of mine mentioned i should spray doom around the alarm connections because ants can get in there and can set it off... so i blame the ants!

Ian | 2005-12-02 01:03:27

All sorts of things can set the alarm off. Like leaving a window open... a warm breeze through the house will do it. Or if you have pets and they're in the house... duh.