I just got off the phone with the police. It was the last thing I wanted to do.
For the last three and a half hours our next door neighbor’s alarm system has been going off. It’s not continuous, so every minute or two it starts up again. There’s really no way to disregard it.
Though these are neighbors we don’t speak with, I left a message on their machine.
I’m not sure what the implication of calling the police is. Do they get a ticket? Do the police break in and get someone to turn off the alarm?
Three and a half hours seems to be my limit of my good neighborliness.
Geoff,
Like a lot of towns, Hamden has an alarm ordinance. Each calendar year, you are allowed four “false” alarm activations. Starting with the fifth, there is a $50 per alarm fee.
In the town where I live, Orange, the police often respond more than once per day to a single address if the alarm continually activates, which often happens in cases of malfunction (or occasionally, a particularly windy day).
It depends on the type of alarm service your neighbors have, but chances are the alarm may have a battery-powered siren and it will drain after a while.
If you’re lucky.
Think about it. This is what the Alarm is for. If it was your house and the alarm went off, wouldn’t you want someone to call the Police to report it. (Even if the Alarm Co. is the one hired to do it.) One might ask why the Police weren’t there earlier to find out why it went off.
I could never wait three plus hours before I called the Police.
John