Light on House Alarm

A neighbour has installed a house alarm with a constantly flashing blue light. One of our tenants is epileptic and the light is really affecting her. It lights up the bedroom through blinds and curtains. Apart from buying black out blinds (which I will do) can anything be done? Is there any kind of legislation with regard to these alarms as once it hits twilight, it lights up the living room too! I can't seem to use the search facility today.

Is the owner in the house while the external beacon is running? is there an internal sounder running as well? If they are not there and the internal sounder is operating the external beacon will not stop until the system is unset. So to be fair there isn't a lot you can do (apart from rining someone to come and rip it of the wall and drop it into a bucket of water although I'm not telling you that this is what you should do!!)

If they are there the external beacon may be wired wrong ie directly to the 12v supply rather than an alarm output. With regard to the other tenant who is epileptic the beacon should not affect them as the are designed not to (well most are anyway).

You could find out if it was a registered installer who did this as they could be in a lot of trouble with the PSA and also if they are not registered with the PSA they could face a fine for doing the alarm and also the homeowner for using an unregistered installer in the first place. the site for more info on this is [broken link removed]

If you need more help on this please do not hesitate to ask.

Regards

Thanks for that Irish Fire. The tenant called over to the other apartment but unfortunately the owners had the attitude of 'you're only renting, we own so...... off!'. I'm glad to hear these are not supposed to do any harm to an epileptic but to be honest, I sat there for half an hour and it nearly drove me insane!

I haven't been able to contact the owners directly but I have left them a note with my telephone number. So far....no call and I'm not holding my breath. This blue light flashes even when the owners are in. I have an alarm but it doesn't throw out light like that. Honestly, it lights up the whole place. I doubt they'll tell me who installed the alarm as they weren't very helpful to the tenant. I can't imagine she was rude or offensive as she's a very quiet, unassuming type of girl who, other neighbours have found very obliging. She thought it was just a matter of them turning down the light.

Nice neighbours!! (there is on in every place) I think you may go the route of going to the psa.... To be fair they are attracting every thief in the country (some thiefs are like a shark smelling blood a mile away ). If a thief sees this and it keeps flahing the place will be cleaned out, so watch your own place. (maybe you shouldlook into my earlier comment )

Any update on outcome? Intrigued as to attitude of neighbours. How did they manage to sleep with it?

The people have gone on holiday so I haven't talked to them myself. However, I did complain to the Management Company. I've seen a few alarms with blue lights but this is like a strobe. Anyway the MC sent a guy around today to examine it and he took it off the wall!! He said it was a false box with a battery operated flashing light which probably shouldn't have even lasted a week. He thinks they put it up BECAUSE they were going on holiday and wanted to give the impression the apartment was alarmed.

It's amazing really, they were willing to fall out with the neighbours over something that probably could have been turned down. If they'd explained what they were doing to our tenant, she's the type who probably would have said ok, as long as you take it down when you come back. They decided to take a hard nosed and rude attitude which upset her and so she called me. Actually the light might have affected her epilepsy as it can't possible be regulated in any way.

Some people's attitude never ceases to amaze me. They couldn't have been more selfish if they tried. Just as well the MC were able to sort it out.

sueellen said:

Some people's attitude never ceases to amaze me. They couldn't have been more selfish if they tried. Just as well the MC were able to sort it out.

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I'm not sure it is sorted yet! They've to return from holiday and all hell will probably break loose then!!