Had a week where 3 separate customers tripped their own alarms within 48 hours

I mean, normally I blame bad wiring or a sensor going out. But last Tuesday through Thursday, three different houses all called saying their alarm kept going off at 2 AM. First one? Their kid sleepwalked into the kitchen and opened the back door. Second one? A raccoon got into the garage and set off the motion detector. Third one? They left a window cracked and a strong wind blew it open. I spent more time on the phone reassuring people than actually fixing anything. Has anyone else dealt with a streak of false alarms that were all totally human error?

2 comments

2 Comments

xenarobinson1d ago

My friend who works night security at a hospital told me they had a streak like this once. Three different nurses set off their own panic alarms in the same week because they kept forgetting to disarm the system when they came in early for shifts. One of them actually clipped the button on her scrubs and leaned against a door frame, setting the whole building off at 3 AM. Another one had her kid's toy beeper accidentally trigger the wireless panic button (the ones they wear on lanyards, you know). The third one just straight up dropped her keys right on top of the. She felt so bad she brought donuts for the whole security crew the next morning.

king.kevin1d ago

Man, that donut move was smart... I've seen facility guys go way harder on security after a false alarm than the nurses ever got, they remember that kind of stuff. Had a buddy on a construction site who tripped the whole fire alarm system by parking his forklift too close to a pull station, we still give him crap about it years later.