Have you registered your house alarm . it could cost you £278...........

azzman

Hello

THIS IS A WARNING TO ALL YOU WHO HAVE HOUSE ALARMS .
we came back from doing voluntary work to a bill on the door step from leeds city council of £278 for disconnecting (smashing of the alarm box) the external siren .
THE REASON GIVEN, they could not contact a key holder to stop the alarm,despite the key holder being our next door neighbour and they never even knocked to ask.(he never heard the alarm by the way).

SO HERES WHAT TO DO .
You need to phone up your local noise nusaince and register a key holder for your house (someone who can turn the alarm off if your ever not avalible) you can register as many as you like (register lots).

I never knew you had to do this( i do belive its a good idea) but the council dont tell you because its money in thier pocket .
So dont leave it, do it now, noise nusaince are open 24hours or it could cost you £278 or more like it did me .
has any body else had the same problem?

Turning_into_scrooge

Is this information no longer held by your local police station?

Twopints

I think the police only hold details of "Monitored" alarm systems - and these are the only ones they will respond to, provided there is a confirmed alarm i.e. someone checks with the householder / keyholder and if they confirm that it is a genuine alarm, then the police respond.

I don't think that the police respond at all to "bells only" systems any more. In this instance it appears that the system is not monitored and has been going off causing a noise nuisance which is covered by the Environmental Health bit of the council.

I have been tempted to cut out the middleman and put a brick through our neighbours' alarm when it goes off at 3.00am.

Justicia

azzman wrote:

we came back from doing voluntary work to a bill on the door step from leeds city council of £278 for disconnecting (smashing of the alarm box) the external siren .
THE REASON GIVEN, they could not contact a key holder to stop the alarm,despite the key holder being our next door neighbour and they never even knocked to ask.(he never heard the alarm by the way).

Around what time of day or night did this alarm "silencing" occur?

SkippyB

Hi

Unfortunately the time of day or night that this alarm goes off doesnt matter anymore. Police do not attend 'non monitored' alarms anymore...Alarms are classed as noise nuisance and as such afre dealt with under Environmental Health laws....please see the below website for more interesting answers to questions...

http://www.askthe.police.uk/content/Q75.htm

Hope this website is of use to people

Skippy

Justicia

SkippyB wrote:

Unfortunately the time of day or night that this alarm goes off doesnt matter anymore. Police do not attend 'non monitored' alarms anymore

I appreciate you trying to answer my question, but the Police issue was not where I was heading with it.

I was wondering how an alarm can go off; I'm assuming annoying someone to the extent that the Council arrive and attack it and yet the neighbour next door hears nothing...?!?

Strange...

SkippyB

Seems wierd...probably another neighbour has called about the noise...sometimes those alarms are earsplitting..my neighbour has one and it goes off all the time...but it usually goes off within 20mins so I just put up with it...I always thought that it had to be more than 2 complaints though for the EHO to actually silence the alarm?

Justicia

SkippyB wrote:

Seems wierd...probably another neighbour has called about the noise...sometimes those alarms are earsplitting..my neighbour has one and it goes off all the time...but it usually goes off within 20mins so I just put up with it...I always thought that it had to be more than 2 complaints though for the EHO to actually silence the alarm?

Now we're thinking alike, Skippy

I would hope that if my neighbour glanced out when hearing noises (putting aside the "whether he heard the alarm" query) to see someone or someones bashing in their neighbour's alarm box...? Which then leads back onto the question of when this "silencing" occured?

It's unfortunate that the OP, Azzman has not returned since the initial post to "assist us with our enquiries..."

azzman

hello sorry i didnt reply i forgot about the listing,
the alarm was silenced at 8pm in the evening and apparenntly another neigbour told me it was lightining that set it off because it blew his digi box at the same time ,but the alarm should cut out after 20mins but obviously the lightning affected it.

its amazing though i have friends who live in a block of flats and for 6 months they had loud music coming from thier neighbours in the early hours of the morning, every time they phoned noise nusiance they were out on alarms ,it seems that thier only interested in making money from alarm boxes if you have REAL noisy neighbours you have no chance .
£278 per every half hour you work out thier income!

chuckles1066

azzman wrote:

hello sorry i didnt reply i forgot about the listing,
the alarm was silenced at 8pm in the evening and apparenntly another neigbour told me it was lightining that set it off because it blew his digi box at the same time ,but the alarm should cut out after 20mins but obviously the lightning affected it.

its amazing though i have friends who live in a block of flats and for 6 months they had loud music coming from thier neighbours in the early hours of the morning, every time they phoned noise nusiance they were out on alarms ,it seems that thier only interested in making money from alarm boxes if you have REAL noisy neighbours you have no chance .
£278 per every half hour you work out thier income!

I'd ask for an itemised breakdown of their charges.........£278 seems excessive.

boogiemaster

Alarms are to ring for a certain ammount of time and then switch off, and if they carry on ringing say for an hour? then the council will wil get annoyed by the complaints.
Mine switches off after 20 minutes so i dont have that problem of getting billed a stupid ammount of money.
I would get your alarm checked and make sure the alarm only rang for a certain lenth of time.
If your alarm went off all through the night then they had the right to nock it off.