Leper, how many neighbours would your recommend people get contact numbers from? How far away from their homes should they attempt to acquire these details?
On a recent windy day, I listened 7 times to alarms going off in the estate behind me in the space of 2 hours, most of them for 20 minutes at a time. Several of them were those really loud ones that you can hear for miles away.
I actually debated with myself whether to write a letter to all these people asking them to leave keys with neighbours, but in the end I went out instead. It's fairly commonplace for alarms to go off there, and I believe the management company has asked people to be considerate of their neighbours in relation to this issue, to little or no effect.
On my road there's an elderly couple who love to spend time in their garden but can't when one of these extra loud alarms is going off; there's also someone who often works nights. Their peace is being destroyed by people who don't even live on the same road.
What really drives me crazy is the idiots whose alarms go off for 20 minutes, then stop only to start up again 5 minutes later. Yet this isn't covered in any legislation I am aware of.
I would love 2 things to happen:
1. People to be fined heavily for regular false alarm activations, and
2. People with loud alarms to be required to give contact details to several neighbours, rather than the neighbours having to ask for this information.
P.S. I have keys for 3 houses near me in case of alarms going off or the homeowners locking themselves out. These are the people whose alarms rarely go off. In my experience it's the people who don't hand out keys or contact details who create the nuisance.