Alarm Apathy Followed By Stupidity

I have yet another reason to hate Santa Cruz........even though this really has nothing to do with the actual city. This is about my lame neighbors. But still....they're in Santa Cruz.

Some Background

I got a phone call at 9:00 on Sunday night from the property manager of my condominium complex. [I was not in Santa Cruz at the time.] Her voice mail informed me that the police had been called and were out in front of my house because a neighbor called about a loud beeping noise coming from my unit. I called the property manager back within fifteen minutes of her message, but I got her voice mail. Being disturbed by the fact that the police had been called, I didn't feel like just waiting for her to call me back, so I called the Santa Cruz Police non-emergency phone number to try and get some information. They informed me that one of my neighbors had called them about this beeping, and that they claimed it had been going on for three days. Apparently the police checked for smoke or any other obvious issues, found none, and then left. Shortly after this call, I did speak to the property manager. During the call I told her that I suspected it was the smoke alarm, and that there was a key hidden if someone wanted to go in and check on my house. Now don't let the title of Property Manager fool you, this woman had no intention of setting foot on the property, or managing anything. No, she just suggested I let it go another twelve hours or so and send someone over tomorrow to look in on the situation. Nice. Happy ending to the story came when DS Man self-motivated and got a hold of my celly and called me [my guess is that he was the one who called the property manager when the police showed up.] He was more than willing to locate the key and check on everything for me. It was indeed the smoke alarm making the noise, and he disarmed it. Thanks DS Man. Who would have thought he would be the hero in this story, but life likes to throw you those curves sometimes.


So there you have it. I left all of my massive irritation out of the background, but I am going to mad-dog infuse it into the next section.


Some Thoughts

Why in the fuck would you let the damn thing beep for three days?! Three days! Are you kidding me? Idiot -- I'm sorry -- that is sheer stupid right there.

Smoke alarms are pretty distinctive sounding. I am going to guess that if anyone went near my front door they would be able to determine that that was probably the culprit for the noise. Why would you ignore that -- for any reason?! Fires can spark and smolder for days before becoming full blazes. Smoke alarms are designed to detect that. Ignoring the alarm makes no sense to me. I am fortunate that it was not sounding for an actual fire because State Farm's motto don't apply at my place apparently.

So okay, shared walls and all, you don't care if my house burns down, but you do want some quiet. It's been three days, it's the end of the weekend, you're over it already. The beeping has got to stop. I get that. What I didn't know, but should have seen coming, is that dumb people employ dumb problem solving choices. They called the police. It is a condo complex with a circulated phone list of, and for, residents (one I should have been traveling with, by the way), and a property manager (I have her number in my phone, but it didn't do me much good.) and Brainiac calls the police. Don't they know that the police are not sanctioned by the city to slay the Beep Monster? I think only Captain Common Sense can do the killing.

And why in the world would you wait until Sunday night to contact anyone about resolving the issue? That is just another layer of Stupid on the already Stupid filled Stupid with hard Stupid shell. Even still, if it has to be Sunday night why wouldn't you just phone the property manager and have her call me?

If it were me, this is how three days of noise and possible danger could have been condensed down to about one hour of resolution and quiet. If we count backwards, the beeping started Friday apparently. I am waiting no more than a few hours, and that is after I have rung the bell and made sure I do not notice anything wrong while I am standing there. After that, I am calling the owner of that unit. If I do not get a hold of them, I am calling the property manager. Between the two, it would be reasonable to expect a call back as soon as possible and then we are on Resolution Road party people. No sitting on the mystery of the beep for days, and no complaining to the police who can't do anything about it. End of story.

I hate Santa Cruz.