Garda put me on hold reporting a burglar alarm?!?

Zipped1987

Called, actually still on hold to, rathfarnham Garda station tonight to report a neighbours burglar alarm after having ascertained that they aren't at home and after the alarm ringing for 25 minutes. Garda answered, cut me off mid-sentence and put me on hold - it has been just over 10 minutes of uninterrupted xylophone hold 'music' so far and no follow up. Haven't been able to report it as a result. A disgrace I would have thought. Hanging up now to free there lines for more potential crime reporters/xylophone enthusiasts. Way to sway my public opinion back the other way gardai. Anyone encountered this before?

Paulzx

Zipped1987 wrote: »

Called, actually still on hold to, rathfarnham Garda station tonight to report a neighbours burglar alarm after having ascertained that they aren't at home and after the alarm ringing for 25 minutes. Garda answered, cut me off mid-sentence and put me on hold - it has been just over 10 minutes of uninterrupted xylophone hold 'music' so far and no follow up. Haven't been able to report it as a result. A disgrace I would have thought. Hanging up now to free there lines for more potential crime reporters/xylophone enthusiasts. Way to sway my public opinion back the other way gardai. Anyone encountered this before?

Don't think you'll find anyone to discuss xylophone music here. Try the Music forum

Zipped1987

Cheers for that

SolarFlash

I called about this before once and the Guard said ''what are we supposed to do about that.'' They don't answer burglar alarms like the US police do.

Zambia

Zipped1987 wrote: »

Called, actually still on hold to, rathfarnham Garda station tonight to report a neighbours burglar alarm after having ascertained that they aren't at home and after the alarm ringing for 25 minutes. Garda answered, cut me off mid-sentence and put me on hold - it has been just over 10 minutes of uninterrupted xylophone hold 'music' so far and no follow up. Haven't been able to report it as a result. A disgrace I would have thought. Hanging up now to free there lines for more potential crime reporters/xylophone enthusiasts. Way to sway my public opinion back the other way gardai. Anyone encountered this before?

Seriously .....
1 The alarm is 25 Minutes old if you want a proper response at this piont call your neighbour to come home or call a shutter company(if its a Genuine break in).

2 Its friday night over there , chances are the Garda has other things to do. He may have forgotten about you on the line.

3 I spent two years responding to Alarms 98% of the time they where faults or human error. If they were a Burg I had about 1-2 Minutes to get to them before the offenders were gone and long gone. Now that was responding where the monitoring centre was in direct contact with me.

4 If you think this is a disgrace you should be on the phone to your Local TD and ask him to come out and check your neighbours house.

5 You have no idea what that Garda is doing its very wrong of you to resort to this instant "Its a disgrace stuff" without knowing that.

pa990

Zipped1987 wrote: »

Called, actually still on hold to, rathfarnham Garda station tonight to report a neighbours burglar alarm after having ascertained that they aren't at home and after the alarm ringing for 25 minutes. Garda answered, cut me off mid-sentence and put me on hold - it has been just over 10 minutes of uninterrupted xylophone hold 'music' so far and no follow up. Haven't been able to report it as a result. A disgrace I would have thought. Hanging up now to free there lines for more potential crime reporters/xylophone enthusiasts. Way to sway my public opinion back the other way gardai. Anyone encountered this before?

They probably have better things to be doing than going to an noise in your estate that's interrupting your viewing of the late late show.

miller50841

House alarms aren't much use these days as most people ignore them, don't hear them or maybe just choose not to give a sh1t.

I find best line of defence for this type of matter would be install cctv equipment and also leave a set of keys with a neighbour who wouldn't be afraid to check on the house.

I have seen the Gardai call to houses in my area but there isn't much they can do unless they have keys or can gain access to front, side and rear of the property.

Tigger

i worked in private security
if you want that level of care then hire private security

Qwerty Dub

Zipped1987 wrote: »

Called, actually still on hold to, rathfarnham Garda station tonight to report a neighbours burglar alarm after having ascertained that they aren't at home and after the alarm ringing for 25 minutes. Garda answered, cut me off mid-sentence and put me on hold - it has been just over 10 minutes of uninterrupted xylophone hold 'music' so far and no follow up. Haven't been able to report it as a result. A disgrace I would have thought. Hanging up now to free there lines for more potential crime reporters/xylophone enthusiasts. Way to sway my public opinion back the other way gardai. Anyone encountered this before?

You waited 25mins to ring the Guards after you heard the alarm. They have only had you on hold for 10mins. That means they still have 15mins until they are as bad as you are.

I find it strange that you could listen to an annoying house alarm for 25mins and yet you only lasted 10mins listening to the the soothing hold music before hanging up. Whats the craic with that?

Zipped1987

Zipped1987 wrote: »

Called, actually still on hold to, rathfarnham Garda station tonight to report a neighbours burglar alarm after having ascertained that they aren't at home and after the alarm ringing for 25 minutes. Garda answered, cut me off mid-sentence and put me on hold - it has been just over 10 minutes of uninterrupted xylophone hold 'music' so far and no follow up. Haven't been able to report it as a result. A disgrace I would have thought. Hanging up now to free there lines for more potential crime reporters/xylophone enthusiasts. Way to sway my public opinion back the other way gardai. Anyone encountered this before?

In stations there is usually two members on duty, sometimes one. Their first priority is to prisoners in the station if there is any there. Something might have happened with a prisoner in the station or a violent one might have been brought in.

The same members are also responsible for the Public Counter. Again, something might have kicked off there that required an immediate response.

Something could have happened on the radio that again required an immediate response.

It is possible they put you on hold and forgot about you or lost the call on the system, it happens.

It is also possible they were just rude.

And if you thought it was an emergency then ring 999. Finally, a burglar alarm on it's own would be a low priority call. Usually companies monitoring alarms only call if there is more than one sensor activated. And even then 99% are faulty or false activation's.

Bosh

Feck sake lads, don't bother, it created an account to make that first post.....

It probably builds bridges, never mind living under them

Potential-Monke

Bosh wrote: »

It probably builds bridges, never mind living under them

Needs to build a bridge more like.

kub

If anyone is serious about their home burglar alarm system then they would have them monitored by private security company monitoring stations.
As per a directive by the Gardai in 2005, the Gardai will now only respond to verified intruder alarm activations. This does not affect Panic Alarm type activations.

Obviously if the OP saw someone kicking in their neighbours front door, then a crime is been committed and indeed I am sure The Gardai would of course respond. But for all we know it could have been a cat that activated the alarm, where is the crime in that?
Bottom line as Zambia said above 98% of intruder alarm activations are false.

allthedoyles

Our alarm went off once when we were not at home , and it was caused by a cobweb .

Zambia

allthedoyles wrote: »

Our alarm went off once when we were not at home , and it was caused by a cobweb .

Lets Roll

Mutz

Should have rung 999 instead. Garda stations are probably a busy place to work in. Or maybe his tea was getting cold and his donuts soggy............ :rolleyes:

Turner

Zipped1987 wrote: »

Called, actually still on hold to, rathfarnham Garda station tonight to report a neighbours burglar alarm after having ascertained that they aren't at home and after the alarm ringing for 25 minutes. Garda answered, cut me off mid-sentence and put me on hold - it has been just over 10 minutes of uninterrupted xylophone hold 'music' so far and no follow up. Haven't been able to report it as a result. A disgrace I would have thought. Hanging up now to free there lines for more potential crime reporters/xylophone enthusiasts. Way to sway my public opinion back the other way gardai. Anyone encountered this before?

If he cut you off mid sentence he obviously mistakenly hit a transfer button and could not get your call back.

For anybody operating a switchboard its very easily done.

You should have hung up and called back if you suspected a burglary/unsecured house, rather than post about it here.

If you were ringing up to complain about a ringing house alarm you should have waited until your neighbor came home and complained to him.

wboluyt

Regarding the xylophone hold music, here is a link to what I think you got: youtube.com /watch?v=6g4dkBF5anU (new user, can't post links, just get rid of the space)

irishrgr

Yep, same here. We will go to an alarm activation, its not the lowest priority (excepting panic alarms of course), but not a "lights and sirens" emergency either. 99% of those I've gone to go like this:
- arrive, check external premises, all looks well, attempt to contact keyholder. If nothing, clear-no report
- if there is evidence of forced entry, then we clear the premises, write a burglary report.
- If there are no signs of forced entry, we don't enter the premises.

In our jurisdiction, alarms must be registered, annual fee $50.00. You get two free "no incident" responses/year for registered systems. All "no incident" responses after that are subject to a fine as is a response to a non-registered system. When that went into place, it really helped the false alarm calls go down and made the alarm companies tighter up their act. Direct dial alarms cannot go direct to police, they must go to a registered alarm company.

A "local" alarm, which doesn't have a dialer does not have to be registered. In the above scenario, there would be a response, same as any other alarm.

Schindlers Pissed

The OP had time to log onto Boards, create an account, find the ES section, write a longwinded post about being on hold but couldn't figure that maybe it would be quicker to go through the 999 system……..hhhmmmm………

pa990

so, has a squad car arrived yet, or is the op still on hold ??

2 years later

*zombie thread reported