Misadventures in Intrusion Alarms

So, around 8:20 this evening, lightning struck somewhere very near my apartment causing my electricity to blink.

Now, my electricity has gone off before, and it is no big deal. And this time, it was a split second and everything was back on. The TV was still on. The DVR picked up playing How I Met Your Mother at the exact same spot. Everything seems fine. However, I hear firetrucks nearby. I can see their lights through my blinds.

At first I choose to ignore them and continue reading my Flist and watching HIMYM. Then I begin to consider that maybe it was something in my complex that was on fire. Perhaps I need to evacuate or at least panic about my car. So, like any nosy neighbor, I step out onto my balcony.

I am met with the high pitched sound of my intrusion alarm. It somehow was activated in the electricity blip.

This would not be a problem if not for the fact that I don't know the code for it. I never activate it for this reason.

I futilely press buttons.

That doesn't work, obviously, so I grab my phone and a book and go outside and call the office. I leave a message on the emergency line telling them what happened and to please call with instructions.

It has been several deafening minutes at this point. I can't read because I can still faintly hear the alarm even outside.

I wait.

I call friends to share my misadventure with only DeliciousDish answering the call and getting to laugh at my newest misadventure.

I get off the phone with her and wait.

And wait.

And wait.

I wait for ten minutes to pass after my first call. I call again. I don't even get the message. The phone just rings, picks up and goes to dead silence. Guess I am not the only one having problems.

Then suddenly, the alarm stops. Relieved, I go back inside hoping to be able to watch Heroes.

A minute later, the siren returns. My ears want to bleed. I return to the outside and call again. Same silence greets me.

What to do? So, I wait for the next break in the alarm (I have deduced it is every 15 minutes). I decide I will just unhook the alarm speakery thing. I pull up one of my kitchen chairs and climb up to inspect the alarm speakery thing. It has a cover like a light switch, so I figure that its electrical setup is probably similar, meaning two wires connecting it. I can handle that.

So, I get on my chair and start to work.

I should probably mention at this point that I grabbed the rickety chair. But, I only have a minute window, so I will just have to distribute my weight away from the faulty leg. I get the screws off the outside cover, but before I can pry the facing off, the alarm returns.

I jump off the rickety chair and flee the noise once more.

What to do? What if the cover won't come off? What if I have to find somewhere to stay tonight because I can't turn my alarm off. I considered throwing the breaker so everything will reset and just dealing with this in the morning, but Heroes is still recording at this point with only 12 minutes to go. I REALLY want to see it, so I will save breaker throwing for 9:00. The Riches will repeat at 10, so no biggie there.

The alarm is like making my ears want to bleed, even from outside. I know my downstairs neighbor HAS to hear. I am sure EVERYONE can. I must do something.

I make a break for it, duck inside, climb onto the rickety chair, cover the speaker with one hand while I attempt to pry off the cover with the other. Even with my hand muffling the sound, I can still hear it, and my chair is groaning and creaking and sure to give way at any moment.

Finally  I get the cover off. I pull out the speaker and inspect the situation. The setup is just as I suspected -- one red and one black wire screwed into the mechanism.

I give it a firm jerk hoping the wires will come lose. No such luck. Because the alarm IS going off, I am hesitant to use my metal screwdriver on the active wires. And since no one has apparently recognized the need for plastic tools EVER, I decide cutting the wire will be my only choice.

I grab the wire cutters that oddly enough were on top of my DVR. After several panicked attempts, I am finally blessed with silence. Sweet silence. Sure, my alarm speaker is now hanging out of my wall by the still attached red wire, but there is sound no more. Tomorrow, I will look into reattaching the black wire, but for now, I am basking in the sweet, sweet silence.

ETA: A building in my complex was struck by lightning which is what set off this whole series of events.

ETA2: The maintenance guy did finally come by last night after I made this post. He looked at me like I was insane, gave me the code, and just stared at the speaker hanging out of my wall. He then pointed out that I could have just taken the cover off the alarm and disabled it that way. I pointed out that I didn't KNOW that was an option at the time and was just trying to make the noise stop. Since the noise was coming from the speaker, in my mind, that was the logical place to start.