My window opens on a parking lot, and at least twice a day (when I’m around), some idiot’s alarm goes off. Sometimes it happens in the middle of the night, which is especially exciting. I like it most of all when it’s one of those screechy “listen to me, I’m a siren!” bits instead of the usual incessant horn honking. Seriously, I couldn’t love this more! I wish it happened more often, and in more places!
I mean, what could be better than a professor needing to raise his voice (for most of an hour-long lecture, no less!) to be heard over the “HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK HONK” of someone’s over-sensitive and over-priced heap of steel and chrome and leather bleating its little heart out on the street? And who doesn’t want to sit at work doing everything possible to ignore the noise as it drives them slowly insane? The mad-eyed and frazzled look is perfect for just about everybody!
Anyone who’s going to steal your car knows how to get around the damn thing. The only things setting these alarms off are:
Pedestrians who have the gall to walk within a foot of the car
Small animals
The owners themselves, as they attempt to get in the car without disabling them first.
The general effectiveness of these things is, for me, summed up by the wonderful scene in South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut in which Conan O’Brien jumps out of the studio window and lands on a car, setting off the alarm. The owner comes out, turns the alarm off with his key fob, and goes back inside without a second thought. What the hell is the point? I hope people don’t pay extra for these.
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.
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There it goes again. God fucking dammit. I’m going to go beat my head against a wall now.
Several years ago the alarm on my car kept going off one night. I rush out to the parking area of the apartment complex to shut it off and see what was amiss. I’d check the doors, under the car and a few cars over. I’d find nothing wrong and go back inside. After several repeats I finally discovered that the hood hadn’t latched completely and when the wind would kick up the hood would rise just enough to set off the alarm before settling back down.
Your window Opens…? :eek:
Well, on behalf of all of us whose office windows Don’t, let me offer you the sage advice of Eddy Van Halen: "Might As Well Jump. <Jump!>"
The faint seismic tremors caused by a truck driving down a nearby road.
When I lived in Pasadena it was in an apartment that faced a street which gave access to a nearby freeway. And some idiot across the street had a car alarm so sensitive, it went off every time a truck drove down the road. And then it wouldn’t get turned off, because the idiot in question apparently was never home. I’m amazed that our less forgiving neighbours never got around to crushing the car into a steel cube with their bare hands.
There’s an elderly widow living across the street who has a house alarm that goes off on a regular basis for no apparent reason. She’s always home, but unfortunately she’s so deaf she can’t HEAR the damn thing. (I’m guessing her husband had it installed before he died, or maybe she could hear then, but she sure can’t now!) Several times neighbors have had to call the police to come raise her attention enough to turn the damn thing off, since you can beat on the door virtually all day with no results since if she’s so deaf she can’t hear that WOOP-WOOP-WOOP-WOOP, she certainly can’t hear a knock or a doorbell.
Her grandson and his wife are living there now; I wish they’d just disconnect the damn thing. She still sets it off several times a week, it’s just that it only goes for a couple minutes now instead of a couple hours. :rolleyes:
The ever dangerous rain drops hitting the jeep during those overnight rainstorms - not heavy storms, just your basic rain.
The best part is, whoever owns this jeep is either a heavy sleeper or lives on the other side of the apartment building and doesn’t hear the alarm. But I hear it:
Wooo-weee Wooo-weee Wooo-weee Wooo-weee
ATTENTION ATTENTION ATTENTION
(I really think it says someone’s last name after this: maybe Anderson or Sanderson or Jefferson…it definitely says something)
ATTENTION LASTNAME ATTENTION LASTNAME
Wooo-weee Wooo-weee Wooo-weee
And repeat over and over and over.
It’s happened twice in the middle of the night since this person moved in: I’m not sure who they are though. The first time, at least two of us complained to the office. The last time it happened, someone either had it towed or the person got up early and left, because when I got out of bed at 6:15 and went out to smoke, it was gone. I hope it was towed.
Oh, puh-lease! That would never happen in real life.
The only time I ever saw someone run out to rescue their car was when it finally got hooked up to a tow truck. The stupid cow had parked under a tree. Leaves were falling on her precious SUV. WAH! WAH! WAH! WAH! WAH! WAH!
She ignored it. And ignored it… Someone called a tow truck.
Oh, then she decided to do something about it?
If she could see the tow truck then she could see no one was stealing her car. So she was just too lazy to turn it off?
I was in a restaurant and an alarm went off for the entire duration of my meal (I hope the alarm is a battery sucker). In that time, a thief could have gutted the thing.
I wonder if auto theftery has declined since these things were installed. Just IMO it hasn’t, but then I’m just guessing. I know my insurance co (Auto Club) still gives a discount if you have them installed.
“What do you need a car alarm for?”
“What if someone tries to steal my car?!”
“Have you ever seen anyone come running when a car alarm goes off?”
“Well, no, but…”
“Case closed.”
I feel for you. Yesterday I couldn’t sleep because of a fucking house alarm going off incessantly across the street all night long. That loud whining was shaking my brain and literally making me ill. Fuckers. If that thing so much as beeps tonight I swear I’m taking it apart with a hammer.
I hate car alarms! Honestly, does anyone hear one and think “oh, someone is trying to steal a car, I’d better call the police!” Or do they, like me, tend to think “oh no, another idiot who doesn’t know how to work his alarm.” They really seem pointless.
My favorite is when you finally discover which car the alarm is in and it’s some raggedy ass hooptie.
My cousin has this car that already has three wheels in the grave. The thing barely MOVES. Every time I hear the little “beep” as she turns her alarm on, I break out into a hysterical fit of giggles.
Even IF a thief decided to pass up all the beemers, mercedes, accords, and suv’s on the street and go after HER hooptie we’d probably be able to catch him on foot anyway.
Fortunately I’m able to compose myself before she walks in the door. I wouldn’t want to offend.
I personally find great sport in driving my slightly louder then normal vehicles around and setting off too sensitive car alarms. I’ve even paused in mall parking lots waiting for them to reset the alarm so that I may activate it again with just a slight tap of the throttle.
There was a “furor” in my home town when a highschool’s student parking lot was moved across the street due to alarms going off all the time during classtime.
Why the fuss? Well, most of the cars were pieces of shit, but the stereo systems they had… Well, that was another story entirely!
The principal stuck to his guns (good for him) though, saying: “If your $1500 jalopy has a $3000 stereo and you’re trying to save for college… I have no sympathy.”
One lunch hour, I left my downtown office and saw a homeless woman having a grand old time making her way down the sidewalk. At each car parked alongside the curb, she’d stop and thump the hood solidly. If an alarm went off, she’d cackle joyously with pure, unadulterated glee like I’ve never heard. Then she’d move on to the next car, thump the hood…
It was a marvelously surreal moment. The woman was in peals of laughter, thoroughly delighted by it all, and grinning from ear to ear.
I have one of those overly sensitive alarms across the street. Its protecting a rare collectable 1986 sentra! Anytime a truck, a big bass hitting car (whole’nother thread!), or a retarded big muffler honda (yet another thread) drives by, it goes off. Whenever this moron comes out of his ghetto house to turn it off I yell out “someones stealing your car again!” Matter of fact I say this to anyone who I see coming to the rescue of there screaming POS car. I think everyone should do the same.
I can only imagine what it must have been like to take it to a shopping center where you were virtually guaranteed to come near enough to it to be setting it off constantly.
