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A Senior moment, or just plain daft?

(42 Posts)
Shanma Tue 01-Nov-16 20:21:42

Today, just after breakfast I could hear an alarm sounding, very loud, very irritating and ongoing. After about 15 minutes of this I thought perhaps I ought to telephone the Police, and report it. I rang the local Police, went through all the questions, and told them that it seemed to be coming from the new housing estate at the back of us.
I explained that I had not seen anything suspicious as it was not possible to see anything there from where I live, and that I was not about to go there to investigate, they lgged it, gave me a reference number , and that was that.

Another ten minutes or so passed, the noise was terrible. I decided to go to the bottom of the garden and have a peep through the hedge to see if that would enlighten me. As I walked past the side of our Garage and further down the garden I realised that the sound became less noisy as I moved away from the garage!!.

Retracing my steps( Dressed by the way on my nightclothes, old clogs and a dog walking anorak, looking every inch the Lady in the Van). I entered the garage, and yes it was in OUR garage! What the heck could it be, we have no alarm in there...was it the car?? I had my ear to the bonnet in case something untoward was happening underneath it, although quite what that may be I could not imagine.

I went into the house, and told Hubby what I had discovered. " Oh hell", he said " I know exactly what that is!!"

About six or so months ago our carbon monoxide detector broke( or so we thought). we bought a new one, and put the old one in the garage until we could get around to recycling it. We then promptly forgot all about it. This morning Hubby started the car up to check the battery was ok as it has been a bit iffy of late..he did not open the garage doors first, and so the detector proved it has not been broken after all, and did it's job, warning the whole neighborhood grin.

Sheepishly I called the Police again, and apologised profusely. The girl thought it was hilarious, but told me not to worry, and thanked me for being kind enough to call them back.

Anyone else had a silly thing like this at some stage??

M0nica Wed 02-Nov-16 10:51:36

We had a burglar alarm and smoke alarm installed, both linked to a central monitoring system that automatically informed the appropriate emergency service if they went off.

DS (early 20s), home alone, decided to grill some sausages for supper - and forgot about them, but was, of course reminded of them when the smoke alarm went off. After much opening of doors and flappings the alarm switched off and he sat down and ate his, rather burnt, sausages.

The next thing was a ring on the door bell. DS opened door to find a fire engine and full team of firemen on doorstep. He explained sheepishly what had happened and that he didn't know about connection to central station. Whereupon firemen asked to see the burnt sausages and he had, even more sheepishly to admit he had eaten them.

The smoke alarm no longer links to a monitoring service!

Cherrytree59 Wed 02-Nov-16 11:12:46

Roses a new game!

First question: Are batteries involved?

Second question: may be kept in bedside drawer?

Anybody want to ask Roses
Third question? grin

Diddy1 Wed 02-Nov-16 11:41:18

More or less the same thing, we heard a smoke alarm (battery running down)in the house, listened under each one, and couldnt detect which one was bleeping, driving us mad, DH took out the battery from the one we suspected was bleeping, every now and then, the mystery noise came, ( they never bleep when standing under them) very frustrated, I looked through cupboards for ages, when suddenly the noise came from a drawer,at the back,there was an old smoke alarm hubby had meant to throw away! so out with the battery, and threw the thing away, then a few choice words with my DH.

JackyB Wed 02-Nov-16 11:42:43

More than once have I set off the smoke alarm at work. Within 2 minutes the works fire service were up in the office.

Once was the toaster - probably full of crumbs which had been toasted too often.

The other was when I microwaved a potato - used to catering for the whole family, I set the (single!) potato at 12 minutes - it was black in the middle and already glowing red when the alarm went off.

Another time when there was a real fire in the factory below, the whole of the staff were out in the yard and some had already smoked half a cigarette before the fire engines (works fire brigade and town fire brigade) finally bothered to trundle along.

Tizliz Wed 02-Nov-16 12:13:11

Same happened to us with a smoke detector. It kept on going off, so threw it out (into the garage with thoughts of getting our money back). Went out for the day and came home to an alarm going off - it was the smoke detector in the garage. It could have been going all day! Did get a replacement one which has worked perfectly for 10 years.

But it might be a good idea to check the battery date - it does work as OH burnt the toast the other week!

nanaMM2006 Wed 02-Nov-16 12:30:49

My husband and I took the two grandchildren on holiday in our town caravan. We got to the site, stretched our legs then I heard this alarm type noise. Thought nothing of it until we opened the caravan door...the noise was horrendous! We ruled out the fire akarm. We had had this caravan for about 18 months and don't remember any other alarm being in its specification. We thought the ear splitting noise was coming from somewhere near the tv cable cupboard. But why, how? DH started to take the tv Ariel supply and boarding apart. Tested with his thingamajig. We're were tearing our hair out. The noise, really was ear splitting it was very difficult to spend time inside the caravan. We were getting fed up, the DGC were getting bored. I decided to get a board game out to try and keep them entertained. The noise got louder...taking all the games and books out I found the culprit. A few years ago I was given a personal alarm that one would where on a lanyard. somehow it had made its way into the bottom of this cupboard and somehow managed to switch itself on.

After a couple of paracetamol each, awning left to the next day DH finally calmed down having thrown the cause of all this commotion onto the ground and stamped on it...you know bloody thing didn't go off!

nanaMM2006 Wed 02-Nov-16 12:32:04

Would wear on a lanyard

VIOLETTE Wed 02-Nov-16 14:23:16

Some years aggo, an elderly mother of a friend was getting upset and really worried about a continuous beeping in her little bungalow, so she called friend, her three children and I, as well as her care lady to investigate, She was convinced the sound was coming from a pot plant (!) .. We found nothing but could hear the beeping ! In the end she called the council who owned the retirement bungalow and after they called the electrician they found the source = the warning sound of the battery getting low in he recently installed smoke alarm !! I guess no one thought to tell her about this when they installed it !

I had a burglar alarm in my house in the UK ,,,which continuously went off whilst I was on holiday, My neighbour who was looking after the house could find no problem, so called an electrician ,,,who found a spider walking across the PIR !!,,,,

mancgirl Wed 02-Nov-16 17:05:41

If roses doesn't tell us then we will guess it to be what we're all thinking it is!!

rosesarered Wed 02-Nov-16 19:02:13

Haha! Sadly no, never had one of those ( DH is still in full working order) grin

Cherrytree59 Wed 02-Nov-16 19:13:53

grin. I was just thinking Alarm clock Roses

rosesarered Wed 02-Nov-16 19:23:18

Of course you were Cherry wink

HootyMcOwlface Wed 02-Nov-16 19:57:55

downtoearth how funny! Thank you for sharing that, I haven't laughed so much in ages!! grin

nellgwin Wed 02-Nov-16 20:57:46

I volunteered working in our local hospice shop. One day the fire alarm went off and I checked the building and couldn't find any obvious problems. Being super efficient I phoned the head office and reported a faulty alarm.
They sent a maintenance man and he searched the building for the alarm noise. Half an hour later he traced it to a bag of clothes and found a toy buzzing away which really sounded like a fire alarm.
Red faces all around but a very annoyed maintenance man was very nasty about stupid women who had no better things to do but waste his time.
How the hell was I supposed to know? Men!??

Menopaws Wed 02-Nov-16 21:39:15

I stayed In a hotel room and I kept hearing a sort of whoosh sound about every half hour but it only went off once so not enough time to follow the noise. Eventually I found one of those air fresheners that shoots out a fragrance on a timer hidden in the back of a wardrobe, I thought I was going mad!

joannewton46 Wed 02-Nov-16 22:42:05

You were being a good neighbour - nothing wrong in that.