Burglar Alarms
Faulty burglar alarms cause a great deal of disturbance to
neighbouring properties and are a regular cause for complaint.
If you have a burglar alarm you should:
- Ensure the alarm has a 20 minute “cut out” and will only sound
for one 20 minute period. There is no benefit to having it set to
go off 3 or 4 times
- Install the alarm as per manufacturers instructions or have it
installed by a professional alarm company and make sure you get a
maintenance agreement
- Ensure neighbours know who to contact if the alarm goes off
unnecessarily
- Ensure the alarm is serviced regularly
- Test the alarm from time to time
Consider having an alarm that is linked to a call centre with
CCTV system so
if an intruder is spotted the police and alarm engineer can attend
straight away. We offer an alarm monitoring service, for more
information visit our CCTV
webpage.
The Kent Police work in partnership with Kent Key Link, 01622
636326. They provide an up to date register of key
holders, that is accessable only by Kent Police. The
police use this to contact your nominated key holders,
to deactivate your alarm. In the event of damamge to your property,
the police will be able to contact your nominated trades person to
resecure your property. There is an annual fee and the service is
available to residential and trade premises.
Nuisance Alarms
If you are being disturbed on a regular basis or for prolonged
periods by a neighbour’s burglar alarm, we have powers to silence
it.
Before You Call
- Obtain the address where the alarm is installed
- Check with neighbours and ask if they know where the people
are:
1. are they likely to be home shortly
2. do they know where they work
3. are they on holiday
4. do they have contact details of any family members or friends
who may be able to contact them or who may have spare keys?
5. Look at the alarm box and get the phone number of the company in
case they have a service contract.
What Next?
If the owner or a keyholder cannot be contacted and the alarm
continues to sound let us know. We will follow up with the
Police.
If we are unable to obtain keyholder details an Officer will
visit to establish whether the alarm is causing a statutory
nuisance. If it is, we will serve an abatement notice and apply to
the magistrate’s court for a warrant to silence or reset the
alarm.
The process isn’t quick but bear with us. We will need to
arrange for various experts to be on site to disarm the alarm. We
have to make a charge to the householder with the alarm which can
run into hundreds of pounds, especially if an alarm sounds at
night.
If you are experiencing regular problems with an alarm please
contact us on 01233 330319 or 01233 330645.
This webpage was updated on
12/22/2011