To take a hammer to this bloody fire alarm

[Sickofpeppapig]

I currently live in a flat above (and owned by) a chain supermarket. There are 3 flats up here and we have an industrial fire alarm that is linked to the shop and the other flats. It is much louder than regular household fire alarms (which we also have) and we have no access to switch it off. As its a supermarket we understand that they need to do regular fire alarm tests and we are more than happy for them to do that. But we've been here for almost 4 years and I think I could count on one hand the amount of times they've actually done it at the scheduled time, if even on the scheduled day at all. It means that any time it goes off we have to guess if its a test or genuine.

And as if that wasn't annoying enough, it's clearly faulty. It goes off randomly for minutes or sometimes hours at a time, at any hour of the day. Once it went off a 3am and it was going for 3 and a half hours. We called 999 and they said they couldn't do anything because it wasn't actually a fire. I spoke to the store manager the next day, she said nobody knew until they turned up to open that morning. The called somebody out to see what triggered it and it turns out it was dust (wtf?). We often go down to see what's going on and they just tell us it won't turn off, sorry. It's happening all of the time recently and I'm at my wits end. It happened at 9pm tonight, fire brigade showed up - once again a false alarm.

As the flat is owned by a company we only get to speak to a property manager through our letting agency. We have no idea how to contact the Landlord directly and the property manager just tells us it's something we have to raise with the store itself (which has been so successful so far..)

I know it would be unreasonable to take a hammer to it, but I feel like I'm running out of options! Any suggestions on how to resolve this?

You coyld try reporting it to environmental health at your local council and also to the local HSE.

You should have contact number of manager on duty over night. If shop gets broken into then someone with keys would attend to check alarms and deal with, should be the same situation with you. You can’t be stuck till morning without any contact details because no one willing give them to you.

I think I'd start looking at the possibility of moving tbh.

I would think Twitter is your friend here. #famouschainisruiningmylife

I was once overcharged £600 in December by an insurance company. All phone calls led to a solid 'it will take 14 days to rectify".
DH took to Twitter #famousinsurerstolexmas. Got the money back in 45 mins!

You could also try the police.

I think you need to contact your local fire and rescue authority (google for them) - they can issue enforcement notices if fire safety isn’t adequate, which the alarm would seem to indicate. If the alarm is malfunctioning it needs to be sorted out and there should be regular tests; if they know it’s not working there will likely be implications for their insurance, apart from anything else.

Please don't contact the police they really wouldn't be able to help in this situation.

Contact environmental health every single time it goes off, contact the CEO of the supermarket quoting the agreed times it should be tested abs all the false activations. Then take to social media if you don't get anywhere.

Thank you all. Will get onto all of your suggestions in the morning. Fingers crossed we get somewhere this time!

Quick update: fire alarm went off again about 20 mins ago. On hold to report it as a fire safety violation. Contacted Letting agency and they're going to try and find out what's going on.