I LIVE in a normally quiet street in Empangeni.
On Sunday 15 September my neighbour’s alarm system went faulty and the siren went off every 20 to 30 minutes for most of the night.
Having missed more than half my night’s sleep, I sent a SMS to my neighbour requesting him to attend to the problem and expected it to be sorted the following day.
I called him in the evening, only to find out that he was in Holland. I informed him to of the problem and asked him to have it fixed.
The next night was not much better, and when I returned from work on Tuesday the alarm was still blaring.
I had enough. I called the security company responsible to inform them of the faulty system and demanded that they fix it or switch it off.
I also called the municipal nuisance inspector and asked him to see to it that this was being done.
Within an hour, the company arrived with the key holder to attend to the alarm.
Half an hour later the alarm went off again, so I called the neighbour in Holland, expressing my frustration and telling him to have the thing switched off.
Instead he got upset with me. The owner of the security company refused to talk to me and simply got his staff to tell me that they had no technicians after hours and they would fix it the next day. Not good enough!
Eventually, after 10pm, with the alarm still blaring, I went to the neighbour’s mother’s home, rang her out of bed and refused to leave until the alarm was switched off. That happened at 10 30pm.
The security company was instructed by their client to fix the alarm, but failed to do so.
With their system causing such disturbance to all the neighbours, it is totally unacceptable for them to say that they will fix it the next day.
It is against the law to cause a disturbance by making noise at night and as long as it is their system that is causing it, they are responsible.
They are not above the law!
Such arrogance towards the public and ultimately against their potential clients, cannot be tolerated.
Businesses that render such services – or in this case lack of it – need to be forced to be able to attend to such problems 24-7!
HERBERT BENTELE
