Neighbour's alarm going off for 4 days

The_Conductor

Mr. G wrote: »

Alarms must meet EN50131 standard as it is now a legal requirement, first came in years ago for commercial properties but applies for all now as far as I know.

All alarms installed must meet this standard now and the regulations state that the alarms now must stop after 15 minutes. There is a setting inside the box that makes it shut off after 15 minutes.

I would have gone mad if it was me. Its only 12 or 24 volts inside so if you want to have a go, just disconnect all the wires including the battery and it will stop. The internal alarm inside the house usually near the control panel will keep going but there's nothing that you can do about that. I would get permission before hand though to be honest.

All alarms installed after a certain date have to meet this standard. Particularly with apartments/houses built at the start of the boom- it was the wild-wild west, and pretty much anything went.
Whats happening now in a lot of complexes- is the original batteries installed in alarms 10-15 years ago, are failing, and if the circuits note that the battery isn't charged- it triggers the alarm.

Obviously- if people had their alarms serviced every so often- this wouldn't be a problem- however, you'd be surprised the number of people who haven't had their alarm checked since the day it was installed.

I'm not in a particularly forgiving mood with my neighbours- as I have warned them all- they are being unfair on all the residents here. I'm one of the few owner occupiers here- we've 4 owner occupiers out of 33 units, and its always the let apartments and townhouses that have this problem- and often when they're unoccupied. The gardai don't want to know- unless its one of our commercial tenants- and even then, other than a cursory drive-by to ensure nothing looks untoward- they don't do a lot.

There really should be some exercise put in place- to ensure that people who installed alarms over the past 10-20 years- are forced to maintain them- with consequences similar to those in the recent act, for those who don't.

SHOVELLER

Agree they should be maintained regularly.

I had this problem a few years back. Next door apartment was empty and the alarm was sounding for 3 days and nights. The resident management company were and are useless. I tried the hammer routine but even going near it nearly blew my eardrums off!

Finally the solution was turning off the electricity to said apartment. Useless landlord who lives abroad still hasnt updated or changed the alarm.

Pawwed Rig

Contact a solicitor and ask them. I would imagine there is some kind of nuisance claim that could be made. Then move to a nice hotel until the neighbour comes back and send them the bill.

Laura1982

Hi guys,

The alarm finally stopped on Saturday morning, and the neighbors have been back since Saturday evening so we'll have a talk tonight!
Not sure how it stopped!

Thanks for your comments, I do believe that it's INSANE that no dept anywhere could help me with this and that there is no actually information anywhere on what to do in this situation!!

Thanks again!
Laura

I had the same problem once in my previous apartment - after one night of no sleep I decided to go sleep in my parents house.

I was talking to a neighbour who asked if they could come with me.

m5ex9oqjawdg2i

Mrs OBumble wrote: »

Second ... you need to find a way to make the installer / provider help. Don't stop with the person who answer the phone .. your want their manager, and perhaps their manager's manager. And maybe a journalist or TD to help.

I don't understand this approach.

Managers tend to be the people you don't want to talk to. If you're going to request anything, request contact information for their legal team if they have one.

Mr. G

I had this problem at a relatives house. We called the gardai and they came out but they couldn't go into the property. It really gets on my nerves as I regularly stay there, the last time it was 6am but before that it was something like 3am. It's insane and really isn't fair on everyone else. It's a credit union that is next door to the house. When you think about it there isn't much you actually can do to shut the alarm off without breaking the law.

Glad to see you got sorted anyway!

Ray Palmer

I was told by an alarm installer today that the PSA are the people to contact. Personal Security Authority. Apparently they can force people to get the 15 minute limiter if there has been one instance of a nuisance alarm. Good to know for next time.

Tea drinker

Laura1982 wrote: »

Hi guys,

The alarm finally stopped on Saturday morning, and the neighbors have been back since Saturday evening so we'll have a talk tonight!
Not sure how it stopped!

Thanks for your comments, I do believe that it's INSANE that no dept anywhere could help me with this and that there is no actually information anywhere on what to do in this situation!!

Thanks again!
Laura

Welcome to Ireland. It's the owners responsibility to ensure correct alarm function - something which should have been tested before going on holiday. Can't expect potentially 100's of people's quality of life to be ruined on account of one carelss person. Alarm should have been removed from the house by authorities to stop an assault on citizens.
But no one really cares to enact anything like that... sure t'will be grand - it might stop in an hour :rolleyes:

Pawwed Rig

I see little purpose for a person to set an alarm where it is not monitored by someone, whether a paid company or a friend/relative. Anyone who sets an alarm with the knowledge that it may go off indefinitely is just an asshole imho.

Why 15 minutes? Why not 5 minutes or less? I had a neighbour once whose alarm was prolific. It used to go off regularly. I called the Guards the first couple of times but they couldn't/wouldn't do anything. The neighbour didn't give a crap. Unfortunately I was working nightshift at the time so everytime it went off I would lose a days (nights) sleep as the internal alarm would keep hammering all day even after the external one stopped. The walls were so thin it was like torture.

jmayo

EnterNow wrote: »

Probably not given its purpose, & if the house was later robbed & it was found out you'd tampered with the alarm...would you be leaving yourself open to trouble? Really a nightmare situation

As you mention above, I thought alarms had to have a limited activation time

Ahh for fecks sake.
After the alarm has been going off for hours a guy could drive a van up, load it with half the contents of the house and no one would pay any attention.
if an alarm has been going off incestantly it defeats the purpose of an alarm.

It's a bit like the lad who continually cried wolf.
Nobody pays attention after awhile.

Also if one alarm is going off non stop, it probably makes another alarm sounding less of a deterent.
If you had a good barister one could argue that their alarm continually sounding negated the affectiveness of your own alarm.

Crazyteacher

My neighbours has has been going off two hours now. They'd better not be gone on holidays again, it went off for two weeks last time

Crazyteacher

Ringing the guards worked....

angeldelight

Crazyteacher wrote: »

Ringing the guards worked....

What did they do?

Muahahaha

Ray Palmer wrote: »

I was told by an alarm installer today that the PSA are the people to contact. Personal Security Authority. Apparently they can force people to get the 15 minute limiter if there has been one instance of a nuisance alarm. Good to know for next time.

Is that the Private Security Authority ? I can't find anything for the personal security authority. The formers website mentions something about "Investigating security services being provided by any person" so maybe that would exclude alarms that aren't monitored by an external company ? Still good to know there is a way of forcing Eircom Phonewatch to do something.

Ray Palmer

Yeah the Private Security Authority. Haven't tried it but apparently you contact them.

Spritzer

Stumbled upon this... and am curious to know what the outcome was...
When did the neighbours return. Hope you got an apology and something nice for putting up with the racket for so long.

Crazyteacher

angeldelight wrote: »

What did they do?

The appeared to have rang some sort of security company and they must have had the authority to go in to the premises. It went off a few times after . I'd say they were trying to reset it. I'd have went crackers if it had gone all night. I had rang everyone in the neighbourhood I could think hoping they'd have a number but neighbours are not as friendly as they were years ago.