Do you know what it’s like to go from a deep delta sleep to 100% apoplectically livid in five minutes at 1:30 am? Well, I do!
I’ve never been so frighteningly angry. I live in Chicago among other apartment buildings and parking lots, so of course car alarms go off and it’s not a huge deal. But when an alarm sounds for 30 seconds, then stops for three minutes, then sounds for another 30 seconds, then stops for three minutes, and then sounds for another 30 seconds – for an hour – you kinda want to shoot somebody in the face.
At one point, I heard somebody from another building yell, “Turn off your fucking alarm!” But nothing happened.
I was very close to finding my heaviest, least valuable item and hurling it out my six story window onto the perpetrating vehicle. But I didn’t, because I can barely make a balled-up tissue into the trash can.
Oh my goodness, I was so mad! I was at that in-between hopeful state where I thought, if I call the police, by the time they get here, the alarm will probably have stopped on its own. So I didn’t do anything but try to plug my ears and cover my head with pillows…
Where the hell was the owner of this car? What kind of alarm cycles between silence and honking? Ugh!
May I add a sideline rant, against people who—rather than getting out of the car and ringing the doorbell like a human being—sit in their car and HONK till the miscreant they are summoning makes his knuckle-dragging appearance?
Someone was honking his horn outside my apartment at 5:30 in the morning the other day, but managed to make his getaway before I could get grandfather’s Civil War rifle down off the mantelpiece.
I bet the alarm is too sensative and either gets set off by passing vehicles or the vehicle it’s in was parked too close to another.
I had a similar problem one afternoon when the owner of a minivan was evidently visiting someone in my building. My apartment faced the street, the minivan was parked right under one of my windows, and the alarm was set off whenever any vehicle went by. I applauded when the idiot owner finally left!
I’m with you on this one. At my old apartment, one of the neighbors was apparently always running later than his/her/its ride would prefer, leading to at least a couple minutes of honking at 6:00 in the fucking morning. One morning, not too long before I moved, someone else (I swear, it wasn’t me) yelled out “lay off the horn, asshole,” which had the predictable effect of a two-minute-long honk.
They built a parking garage across the street from the apartment I used to live in.
That’s how I learned that some alarms do not have an automatic cutoff, and that it takes approximately nine hours for a car alarm to drain a car battery enough that it will stop sounding.
The fact that I learned this between the hours of 11pm and 8am on a weekday during midterm season nearly had me making a midnight shopping run for a baseball bat.
I actually did throw a pitcher of water out the window over a car whose owner was blamming away on her horn. No damage done, but boy, did it surprise her.
My alarm does not go off for the strongest storms. I’m not concerned (too much) about having my car bumped. But if the glass is broken my alarm will go off and page me in my house (or office). Then I’m off with a baseball bat to check out my car (generally in my underwear as well).
It happened at an apartment complex I lived at a few years ago. Every 10 minutes or so, the alarm went on again. Why does this not bother the owner of the vehicle?
Anyway, someone finally either called the police, or directly called a towing service. Once the noisy car was jacked up to be towed, the owner finally came out all suprised. I personally do nothing when I hear car alarms. Let the dumbass’s car get stolen for having it “cry wolf” all night long.
My coworker who lives in SF had a similar problem. One particular car had a very sensitive alarm which would go off at all hours of the night, specifically those generally used for sleeping.
Coworker checked around and couldn’t find the owner in the neighborhood. One day he happened to spot the guy getting into his car and mentioned that gee, that alarm is kinda trigger happy, maybe you can turn it down a bit?
Owner’s response:
“Yeah, it sure is loud. I have to park 4 blocks away from my house so it doesn’t bother me.”
Pause for dumbfounded look on my friend’s face followed by tersely worded request to move his effing car into his own neighborhood or else.
There was another person who left a brick on the hood of the offending car with a note asking for the alarm to be turned off, pretty please.
Instructions for deactivating intermittent alarm system.
Tools required:
Baseball bat (or a 16+ Oz. hammer)
Wire cutters
Use baseball bat to open driver’s side window. Open driver’s door, find and release hood latch. Open hood and use wire cutters to disconnect power source (battery).
Note: Bat and/or hammer may also be used as effective training aids in behavior modification.
</joke>
On a serious note, I had a 1990 Caddy with an alarm system that was intermittent. It drove me nuts. When it would go off, I could stop it with the control and then I would disconnect the horn wire. After three or four trips to the dealer for repair, I made them remove it give me a refund.
DaToad not to be a minimod, but I don’t think you were supposed to give the (however obvious) how to.
But since it’s been said, that IS roughly the trick–and it never ceases to baffle car owners who get their cars stolen or robbed: “My alarm never went off!” Well, it did, but only for about 3 seconds while the tag team disabled it.
LoJack is the only answer. Consider it a mandatory expense of the vehicle like licensing, insurance or gas…unless you drive a theft-resistant POS like I do!
I used to live in a 4-plex apartment. The shared carport was at my end of the building. A guy at the other end of the building owned a little freaking Geo Metro with an extremely sensitive alarm.
I was working the graveyard shift, and would get home from work at about 7:00 AM. Often, if I was really tired, I would then go to bed at 8:00. At about 8:30, the guy in the house next door would leave for work. He would drive past the carport with his exaust rumbling, but not especially loud.
The rumbling pipes would trigger the Geo’s alarm, waking me, and then the alarm would blare for the next 30 minutes or so until the swing-shift-working-go-to-bed-at-4:00AM-wake-up-at-noon-22-year-old next door would finally be roused from his sleep and shut the damn thing off.
More than once I considered going outside and turning the HotWheels-sized Geo on its side, so that the alarm would have a reason for going off.