Neighbour's burglar alarm keeps going off in middle of night

usignuolo

Police are as rare as hen's teeth round here but about three weeks ago we had a visit from the local crime prevention officer to ask if we had noticed anything suspicious a few days earlier when apparently a major burglary had taken place at a large house at the end of the road, cleaned out while they were away for the weekend.

I was outside talking to my neighbour at the time and we said no, but pointed out the house opposite, which while unremarkable outside, was owned by a young man who had recently bought and refurbished it at great expense and indeed he had a valuable mountain bike stolen from his garden shed fairly recently.

The policeman said they knew about that neighbour who it seems has a state of the art burglar alarm wired direct into the local police station where it registers when it is triggered. He gave us some leaflets about crime prevention and said they would be keeping a close eye on our road and be a visible presence for the next few weeks and asked out to keep an eye out as well. Never seen a policeman since of course.

However three time in the last five days our neighbour's hot line burglar alarm has gone off in the middle of the night, I assume he is away for Christmas. There has been no sign of a policeman turning up there on any occasion. I phoned the local council who said I should talk to the neighbour about it. I cannot phone the local police station, round here you can only speak to a central number to report a crime, and in any case I have already been told by the police it has a hot line into the local police station. So where are they?

The alarm goes off for 20 minutes, stops for a short period and then resets itself and starts again. There is no sign of anyone outside and there are a lot of urban foxes around here on the prowl at night and I presume they set it off. But it does raise the question, where are the police who must know it has been triggered, and what regulations are there to stop the damned thing disrupting us night after night?

baza52

So the alarms going off and the police don't turn up.
Whats his address? Ill bring a van


I would phone the police and tell them an alarm is going off and you suspect a break in.
Surely they will turn up and take a look.

Stooby2

Most forces don't respond to alarms these days due to the extremely high number of false activations - unless they get further information, for example, breaking glass was heard, unusual lights/noises, etc. Panic alarms or hold-up alarms are usually repsonded to though.

And the alarm isn't wired to the police station, it goes through a private monitoring company who contact the police when the alarm goes off.

Mankysteve

Stooby2 wrote: »

And the alarm isn't wired to the police station, it goes through a private monitoring company who contact the police when the alarm goes off.

As above it wont be reporting direct to the police just to monitoring firm.

Captain_Flack.

Stooby2 wrote: »

Most forces don't respond to alarms these days due to the extremely high number of false activations - unless they get further information, for example, breaking glass was heard, unusual lights/noises, etc. Panic alarms or hold-up alarms are usually repsonded to though.

And the alarm isn't wired to the police station, it goes through a private monitoring company who contact the police when the alarm goes off.

They do respond providing the house holder chooses to pay. Three false alarms in a set time (usually 12 months) and the response is withdrawn. There is no difference with panic alarms.

Stooby2

I would imagine it differs from area to area. I know for a fact they don't here in the Met area as I looked into getting a monitored alarm last year and realised it wasn't worth it because of that.

Captain_Flack.

Stooby2 wrote: »

I would imagine it differs from area to area. I know for a fact they don't here in the Met area as I looked into getting a monitored alarm last year and realised it wasn't worth it because of that.

ADT do it in London, how hard did you look?

diable

Throw a glass bottle in front of his fence phone the Police and say you heard the sound of broken glass and the alarm going off (wipe your fingerprints of the bottle if you are paranoid) ;o))

marlot

A monitored alarm will normally have the installer's phone number on the alarm box. I'd give them a ring.

There are two stages of alarm on many - if just one sensor is triggered it will sound the alarm. But the police link is only triggered if two or more sensors are tripped - this reduces the number of false call outs.

Modern alarms reset themselves, automatically excluding the sensor which was triggered. I know mine does.

We gave a set of keys and an alarm key fob to our neighbour for just such an eventuality.

Ant555

A couple of years ago we were in a similar situation with a neighbours alarm going off at all hours.
Much grumbling from us all being woken up regularly as they were away and we couldn't really do anything.

When the police eventually did turn up a few days later they found that a window round the back had been forced, a burglary had taken place and the reason the alarm was going off all the time was possibly due to flapping curtains or something else moving around in the wind (usually at night!)

I think someone had already put a note through their door saying 'get your alarm sorted out as its keeping everyone awake!' - the neighbours subsequently posted notes through lots of letterboxes apologising for the noise but explained they had been burgled etc.

So, is it possible to get round the back of the house and see if it all seems secure? (Although they might already have returned by now)