Burglar alarms

So we moved into our new place in the summer and haven’t really used the alarm much (not been away for significant periods of time and I’m not keen on setting it at night).

I triggered it a month back when doing some electrical DIY and turned off the the mains which set the alarm tamper mode off. Spent 20 mins with a wailing alarm while I looked for the scrap of paper from the previous owners with the codes written down.

But last night at 4am the alarm went off (I hadn’t set it, it just starting wailing, waking up the neighbourhood). Left me rushing around in my pants with two screaming young children trying to find the piece of paper with the reset code (different to the on/off code). finally found it and one of the neighbours alarms was also ringing. THought it could be a powercut but all the clocks and power were fine.

Why would the alarm just randomly go off?! Freaks my nut out

Take it to the scary door thread

In all seriousness it was probably just a power surge?

that makes sense but would there be any other signs in the house of a power surge? Might phone up the elec provider to see if there was an issue. Didn’t go back to sleep and was sat with a baseball bat in the dark waiting for some creeper to sneak out.

But if it wasn’t on then an intruder couldn’t have set it off? I really wouldn’t worry about it, although I imagine your heart must’ve been pounding, at least you weren’t home alone.

Burglar alarms were all the rage when I was growing up but I literally know no one who has one and uses it anymore. Would you miss it if you just got rid?

If more than one alarm has gone off then it’s likely that it was a local power surge, a firework, or maybe even a minor earth tremor, but the latter two probably would have set off car alarms as well.

If you’ve just moved in to a new place and are looking to keep using the alarm, it’s worth getting it serviced, even if you haven’t declared your alarm on your insurance (we have an alarm, but don’t declare it, as it doesn’t really effect our premiums and means we don’t take on an increased liability re. maintenance etc).