A New Day Dawns...Much Too Early

Of all the things that have been annoying me lately, burglar alarms is the one really getting me into a lather.

Barely a week goes by that I'm not woken up at 4am at least one morning by an alarm in one of the commercial buildings nearby. It usually lasts at least an hour and destroys any chances of getting back to sleep (not least because the sound of the alarm sends my cat into a frenzy).

What on Earth is the point of having a security alarm on a property anyway? I doubt that it has every actually stopped a burglary. When was the last time you heard a security alarm and thought "Goodness me, there must be a break-in taking place. I must go at once and apprehend the scoundrel"? No, if you're like me, the only reaction you'll have is to scream "TURN OFF THAT FUCKING ALARM!" and pull a pillow over your ears in the vain hope of muffling the god-awful noise.

Or you might go one step further. I haven't seen any statistics on this, but I wouldn't be suprised if the majority of break-ins were, in fact, people just trying to get into the building and shut off the damn alarm.

All the alarm can do is notify the security company of the possible intrusion. And I really mean that's all it can do. One night, driven to distraction at 3am, I called my local police station to report an alarm which had been sounding for over an hour. The nice officer on duty explained to me that they'd had a lot of complaints, but that the security firm had been notified and was on the way. But the police weren't going to go and investigate if there had been a break-in themselves..!

Anyway, when the alarm is triggered, the security company is notified automatically, so what is the point of all that whoop-whoop anyway? Just have a silent alarm, and then there's no risk of the having windows smashed in by irate residents. Then we can add burglar alarms to a list of banned noise pollutants, which will also prevent Paris Hilton from ever releasing another single.

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