to think my neighbour and my local council are totally over-reacting?

[Helenagrace]

Back story - we're away at the moment. I left a key with a neighbour so they could check my house over.

He called on Monday to say that the alarm had gone off in the early hours. He had been over to check the house and reset the alarm but it went off again a few hours later during the morning. He called and I said to turn it off and leave it off. It went off again (we think there's a fault with the battery as it goes off if the alarm has no power - apparently we can't over-ride this). We thought that was the end of it but it went off again on Tuesday at 6am, even those it wasn't actually set. My neighbour went back in on Tuesday evening and disconnected the battery and the power supply and it hasn't gone off since. So in total it has gone off four times in 48 hours and it rings for 12 minutes each time.

Today I've apparently had a visit from environmental health demanding access to my property. My neighbour went over to the house but didn't let them in as he hadn't spoken to me. Another neighbour has made a complaint today (even though the alarm hasn't actually gone off for 48 hours). They are demanding access to my home to inspect my alarm. I have said no as I'm not there and won't be until Sunday as I'm on holiday. Apparently environmental health are not happy about this. Apparently if I don't allow them access they will obtain a court order to enter my property. I'm sure that will obviously be a priority for the Saturday magistrates sitting ... er not.

AIBU to think I have done everything that I could have done to minimise the disruption? I left a key with a neighbour, instructed him to turn the alarm off and then to disable the alarm when it continued to go off. The alarm is faulty. It has been serviced within the last year. I bet most people would have gone on holiday for a fortnight and just left the alarm to go off for days on end because no one would have a key to get in and turn it off.

Ok I admit it's not very nice to be woken up by someones's house alarm in the middle of the night but it's not like it's a dodgy alarm. This doesn't usually happen.

I'm not BU am I?

I don't think you are being unreasonable OP. But I am totally confused now - why is that when my neighbour's alarm went off at 10pm and was still going off at gone 2am when they got in did my council tell me there was nothing they could do? Or is it that they can only do something after the fact?

Also, 6.30am is annoying, sure, but it's not like it was 3am is it?

in fact feel free to have an alarm but please dont turn it on!!!!

Ban 'em completely I say

Used to live on a small estate where everyone had the same alarms. I'd estimate 75% of these people never had them serviced so the backup battery was never replaced. Oh what fun it was when there was a powercut in the middle of the night to be surrounded by 20 alarms going off simultaneously.

We never set ours, too many nights unbroken sleep from alarms going off mean I'm loathe to risk being the cause of that for someone else.

The first thing I would say is are you sure it only goes off for 12 minutes? Because the ones round here go off for well over 40 minutes a time. Also, if you call the local police and ask advice about what to do (because they've been going on and off all day and you don't know if the people have gone on holiday) they say call environmental health. Also the ones round here are very loud - far louder than a car alarm. But i think you did everything you could in the circumstances. I would give them a call and explain your side.