Things that go bump in the night...

patchwork_cat

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

:rotfl: And you'd trust a medical condition to be correctly diagnosed by Doc Martin? :rotfl:

There is a medical advisor on Doc Martin, ironically also called Martin! There often is on medical dramas. In fact one game I play on those sort of shows is can I diagnose the condition before the Dr!! They are often the same old same old condition!

I too sometimes hear the phone ring when it isn't - I swear it dings occasionally - it definately used to years ago, but I thought digital exchanges had stopped it.

Check out this article on phantom doorbell ringing http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/3319731/Doctors-diary-the-doorbell-always-rings-or-does-it.html - very interesting, the point about the security light was excellent common sense, as for the comment about the recently deceased at the end of the article that is a very firmly held believe in certain religions.

Savvy_Sue

patchwork_cat wrote: »

There is a medical advisor on Doc Martin, ironically also called Martin! There often is on medical dramas. In fact one game I play on those sort of shows is can I diagnose the condition before the Dr!! They are often the same old same old condition!

yes, but both Doc Martin and House have sometimes diagnosed people as congenital idiots, or something they've made up on the spot, so I was thinking it was just him being grumpy IYSWIM! :rotfl:

notsayingaword

pennyfarthing1971 wrote: »

This actually happened to us a couple of years ago - the door bell would ring, we would go to the door and boone would be there - it turns out that our neighbour a few doors away had the same wireless door bell and when someone pressed their bell, it would activate ours too - maybe this is a similar situation?

This happened to us too. It was annoying that no-one was at the door when we answered. We thought it was kids messing around until we looked out of the window while the bell was being rung and no-one was around. We reset the frequency on the bell so it wasn't on the default setting and now we don't have any problems.

ailuro2

Years ago my Dad was convinced kids were playing tricks and ringing our doorbell, it turned out there was a spider inside the box and every so often it would cross the contacts and the bell would ring. He claimed it was the cause, as he eventually took the bell apart to replace the batteries and found the spider and worked out what had been happening.

There's a simpler way, though. If she's as switched on as you say, she can smear a bit of oil (or something that will show a fingerprint) on the bellpress before she goes to bed, then check in the morning to see if it's been pressed after she's had a rude awakening.

It's not the first time I've been woken by the phone ringing at 2 in the morning, most times it's been a dream, but there have been times when it's been little kids playing with a 'phone, yes, in the middle of the night.:eek:

belfastgirl23

We've twice had our burglar alarm go off because of spiders in the sensors ailuro could well be right...

ailuro2

it never hurts to rule things out - I'm glad someone else can agree with the spider theory - it does sound a bit daft, doesn't it? I didn't think they'd be that good conductors.:rotfl:

soolin

princess_loki wrote: »

slightly off topic but still funny...

my grandad and great aunt went on one of those old peoples holidays. my aunt spent the first few days complaining about the people in the next room having the radio on. she made a huge fuss about it after the third night. upon inspection of the room by the hotel manager it was discovered that she had been messing with the alarm clock which was also a radio and the radio had been playing on low volume the whole time - she never lived it down and had to apologise to the occupants of the adjoining rooms :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Exactly the same thing happened to us in our previous house where it was a fairly new build so thin party walls.

Our neighbours who were really nice complained over and over that our alarm woke them every morning, so we had it so low in the end that we couldn't hear it. Then they complained again but happened to mention the ringing at 7am really got them down, which was odd as our alarm went off at 5.50 am and straight to the news. It turned out that they had an old watch in a drawer that had an alarm on it, and they must have knocked it and so it went off every morning for several minutes but sounded muffled (as it was in the drawer).

On the original question though my mother lives in a retirement home and they used to have a resident with Alzheimers who wandered in the night and rang door bells, but that was much more random, she used to ring several different ones.

patchwork_cat

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

yes, but both Doc Martin and House have sometimes diagnosed people as congenital idiots, or something they've made up on the spot, so I was thinking it was just him being grumpy IYSWIM! :rotfl:

Spot on diagnosis - congenital idiot - IMHO - I certainly seem to meet more than my fair share :rotfl::rotfl: Exploding head is rather like a condition on Theme Hospital !!!

patchwork_cat

ailuro2 wrote: »

it never hurts to rule things out - I'm glad someone else can agree with the spider theory - it does sound a bit daft, doesn't it? I didn't think they'd be that good conductors.:rotfl:

If you read my link above spiders are mentioned as a potential cause.

TeetersOnHeels

Loads more things to consider - thanks everyone!
Will check the bell box for spiders, and also the greasy substance on the bell press...The wireless thing too - didn't realise it could be so much of a problem!
I'll report back when I've been over in the week!!