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Citizen complaint of the day: The stupid mini-van and its stupid car alarm and its stupid owner who must wear stupid earplugs at night
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By adamg on Thu, 01/19/2012 - 9:00am
A groggy citizen complains about a mini-van parked in a lot off Northampton Street:
This car's alarm goes off every night several times a night and wakes up everyone on the block. Has been happening for at least three weeks... Can't leave a note because it is behind a gate in apt complex lot. Can someone trace and contact the owner?
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Comments
He he he...
This happened back when I was a student living in Allston, but the car was on the street. After a several nights of the car alarm being set off randomly some local resident got fed up. I believe that any wire reachable from underneath the car was cut until the alarm stopped blaring.
Maybe you would like to try something a bit more diplomatic first.
Tape a note
Tape a note to the gate saying "to whoever owns the ugly dust buster minivan...." And let them know you mean business
Took me back to my Allston days too.....
Cars alarms then went off for hours..until the battery died. One night on Parkvale an alarm went off and it didn't stop. I called the police and they said there was nothing they could do and that they were being inundated with calls.
About a dozen people went out, in their PJs, to the car and broke in to it. Looked like they used a coat hanger or slim jim. There was a huge cheer when they got into the car. And when they actually turned off the alarm, and even bigger cheer as LOADs of people were hanging out their windows watching and they cheered too.
My theory is if a car alarm
My theory is if a car alarm is going off for no reason, grab a golf club, baseball bat, brick, etc., and go give it a reason.
OMG Cripes, are you ok?
This post does not seem to have the proper tagline at the end.
Apparently not a towable offense
Once when we had a similar problem on my block, a police officer told me that Boston (unlike a lot of other places) did not have a law allowing them to ticket and tow away a car for false alarms... the law in Chicago if I recall correctly was 5 minutes of false alarm was sufficient for a tow. I was quite surprised that there was nothing he could do -- is that true?
Both are correct
Doesn't appear to be a towable offense, but is illegal:
16-26.2 Unreasonable Noise-Making Automobile Safety Devices.
The use, maintenance, installation or keeping of any device whose purpose it is to protect an owner's vehicle from damage and/or theft through the mechanical creation of a noise of sufficient magnitude to be plainly audible at a distance of two hundred (200') feet from such device which does not automatically terminate any such noise within five (5) minutes shall be unlawful. Penalty for violation of this section shall be a fine of fifty ($50.00) dollars. This section shall be deemed a part of the Environment Protection Ordinances, so called, and shall be enforced pursuant to the provisions of Chapter 40, Section 21D of the General Laws.
Disturbance of the Peace
This qualifies as disturbance of the peace. That merits a police report. Call the cops and say you want to file a report. Emphasize disturbance of the peace. Especially when the alarm is going off late at night.
Do you have binoculars? If you do use them to get the license number. That should be part of the report.
Contact your City Councilor. He or she might be helpful as well (unless the owner of the van contributes more than you to your City Councilor's election committee.
On the other hand make a donation to the mayor's election committee and Menino will smile upon you (and frown on the van's owner - unless, again, they give more than you).
Is it within shotgun
Is it within shotgun distance?
Maybe a note with a big
rock tied to it thrown over the fence. That should get the message across.
I wish
I wish Mass would enact the same law California has. Car Alarms can only go off for 1 minute, and must turn off. If a car alarm is not set that way, you can call 911 and the car will be towed away. (and a hefty fine will be given in order to get your car out of the tow lot)
Yeah having a car alarm go off for 1 minute kinda defeats the purpose, but then again if someone's gonna steal your car, they are going to be deterred in that one minute anyways. Better Car alarms are LowJack-type devices anyways...
I mean when was the last you got up and looked at a car alarm going off, unless you think it was your own car. Not often (or unless its been going off for like 10 minutes).
The purpose of a car alarm
You mention that "having a car alarm go off for 1 minute kinda defeats the purpose."
I disagree. The purpose of a car alarm is to respond to the lobbying efforts of alarm companies, who got it written into Massachusetts insurance regulations that you get a discount on your insurance for having an alarm, and, if you have a car on the Insurance Commission's list of "high-theft" vehicles, you pay a surcharge if you don't have an alarm.
Actually discouraging or preventing theft is a side benefit of dubious value.
You know what they should outlaw
is any alarm that's designed to go off for any reason other than entering the car without the key or moving the car several feet. Then people might actually start to care if they hear a car alarm. Right now, no one thinks "oh, someone's car is being harmed." They think "some jackhole got motion sensors last time they made a blue-headlights-and-giant-exhaust-tip run to AutoZone."
You live in a city
Where are the "you live in a city"-ers on this one?
I thought we were supposed to be having such a great time that we have grown to love the noise of car alarms.
How can you change the
How can you change the duration of your car alarm? Mine seems to continue going off for a very long time if triggered. I always wondered what would happen if it went off when I wasn't home.
A large wire cutter?
My last car with a car alarm, from back in 2001, had an alarm that would shut off after some interval if I didn't rush outside to turn it off.
What Adam said
Get rid of it. If it's going off regularly, that means you have an alarm with motion sensors or some other useless thing that creates false alarms. So you're already known as that jackass whose alarm goes off when no one's harming the car, and no one is going to come outside to save your car if your alarm goes off. So it's useless.
Mocking Birds and Car Alarms...
When I lived in New Orleans, a friend of mine who lived in the Upper 9th Ward pointed out that car alarms went of so frequently there that mocking birds had learned to mimic them. I thought he was joking until I began listening for it and heard it for myself ("ooohh-weeeee-ooohh-weeeee WAH! WAH! WAH! WAH!"). I guess, to a mocking bird, an alarmed car is just one big ugly, metal, flightless bird.
local wildlife
We had a mockingbird in Brighton a couple of years ago who knew the car alarm song. He also did fire trucks.
Last year we had a mockingbird who must have learned the car alarm song from another mockingbird. He had the rhythm right, but the tune was off.
City mockingbirds
A bit of topic drift here. But I was once at a Cambridge intersection. I heard the walk signal sound, but looked up to see that the sign still displayed "Don't Walk." It was then that I noticed the mockingbird perched near the traffic signal.
Linear Park, Cambrige/Somerville Line
I was walking it one day in 1995 with an expat Aussie friend (thread tie!) when this mockingbird launched into a perfect four-part car alarm aria.
Living in Cambridge, he did recognize the song but had no idea where it was coming from or why. Thus, he learned about that peculiar creature called the Mockingbird.
Suffice it to say that car alarm noise pollution was way worse in the 1980s and 1990s, when Boston was the car theft capital of North America for a time.
Got One Right Here...
In Waltham, the mockingbirds have perfected the car alarm sound in our workplace garage. It's surprisingly good.
Hano Street this weekend
This happened on Hano Street in Allston at abt 5am this Sunday. Neighbor A's car come too close to Neighbor B's car and it tripped B's alarm. After 1.5 hours of beeping and no claimants for the noisy car, the police arrived with a local tow company. I was amazed to see that the tow company, unable to unlock the car, pulled the car sideways and loaded it onto a flatbed.