Entitled neighbor refuses to fix beeping alarm, frustrated dad gets his kids to make it stop: 'Cut the wires'

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
May 25, 2024 8:00 AM EDT

Is there anything more frustrating than the incessant beeping of an alarm, especially when you can't seem to stop it? 

I vividly remember staying in an Airbnb when in the middle of the night, at 2:30 AM in the morning, an alarm started beeping out of nowhere. It was not a frightening one, like when there's an intruder. It was the soft but painfully annoying alarm that sounds when it's out of battery and you have to replace it. At first, you try to ignore the sound and go back to sleep, but then, you realize that's an impossibility. It's time to stop the alarm, but in this instance, the issue was that I had absolutely no idea where this alarm was since this home was unfamiliar to me. Let's just say it took me an hour to find the source of the beeping. 

So, I understand the varying degrees of frustration that come with an alarm beeping incessantly. With that in mind, I can't help but empathize with this Redditor, who ordered his kids cut the wires to his neighbor's alarm out of spite. Keep scrolling below for the full story. For more, check out this post about a house-flipping neighbor's landscaping error.

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  • 01
    "Don't want to fix your alarm? Don't worry. We'll do it for you"
    via Sieuwert Otterloo
  • 02
    This is one of my own and has happened about 20+ years ago. We just had moved to a better neighbourhood, to a nicer house in a quiet cul-de-sac. This was a planned neighbourhood where
    via u/Weird_Object8752
  • 03
    people eventually expanded their houses and customised them as such. We had 3 neighbours and the neighbour on the rear of the yard had an intruder alarm which would be set at random times of the day - probably due to some sensor being badly positioned or an electronic fault.
    via u/Weird_Object8752
  • 04
    The owner of this property, decided to create a nice big veranda on the top of his house and to achieve that he has built up a wall adjoining the boundary wall
    via u/Weird_Object8752
  • 05
    to our house and built his upper floor veranda. Now this was a structural wall but had the upper part (facing our house's rear) open where metal bars were fitter to deter any burglars (this detail is important). The alarm bleeper was fitted to a column close to the metal bars in such a way that it was reachable from our property (and probably from the adjoining property as well).
    via u/Weird_Object8752
  • 06
    On a beautiful sunny day, dad was cooking lunch/dinner and since it was a nice sunny day he would have had already a few beers and the blasted alarm started to go off.
    via u/Weird_Object8752
  • 07
    He then pretty much told me (12 then) and my brother (6 then) to sort it out. Cut the wires. "Sod the neighbour I've already told that to fix that blasted alarm".
    via u/Weird_Object8752
  • 08
    Being the good boys we were, we obliged: I took some sharp scissors that would have a plastic/insulating handle. I then held my brother up and told him to cut one of the wires carefully.
    via u/Weird_Object8752
  • 09
    Well we did it. It was quiet (or as quiet as it could be with dad playing his usual tunes as he would after a few beers - anything from Donna summer to Queen)
    via u/Weird_Object8752
  • 10
    Couple of days later, some federal police officer knocks our door, it was the neighbour's boss as he was a federal highways officer, asking dad if he knew who tampered with the neighbour's alarm. Dad said he didn't but he would like to raise a complaint as the neighbour was disturbing the peace with his alarm.
    via u/Weird_Object8752
  • 11
    Federal police officer said that would be dealt with by the state police, hence when dad identified himself as a state trooper (he was on medical leave then) and said that "I've already told him to fix that alarm but he hasn't took it seriously, will I need to report him?"
    via u/Weird_Object8752
  • 12
    Words were exchanged and the neighbour moved his alarm bleeper to the front of the house - only to receive a town fine after an anonymous tip off from a member of public due to a noise violation. I wonder who did it...
    via u/Weird_Object8752
  • 13
    TL/DR - neighbour with small man syndrome doesn't fix his annoying intruder alarm. Gets the bleeper cut from the system, bl ]d by his boss and fined by the town.
    via u/Weird_Object8752
  • 14
    st00j 21 hr. ago Great revenge. I find it interesting that you said the "blasted alarm went on." I've never thought about it, but most Americans will says that an alarm is "going off." I think that "on" makes more sense, and now I'm wondering why we say "off."
    via u/Weird_Object8752
  • 15
    McHiggo 20 hr. ago In the UK we'd saying going off too. Perhaps it relates to old warfare? E.g. If a cannon goes off the cannon ball literally goes off into the distance. It's then just been applied to anything that causes noise when triggered. No idea if it's right but it seems plausible.
    via u/Weird_Object8752
  • 16
    welddaddyalphamet ⚫ 19 hr. ago I think it's a Brit trying to speak as an American. Cause he said that the dude got "B d" Brit slang there.
    via u/Weird_Object8752

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Tags

alarm petty-revenge-reddit house neighborhood neighborhood-drama bad neighbors neighborhood-stories petty revenge petty reddit thread Reddit
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