The Alarm System Debacle

So, yesterday I mentioned in my 'Today I...' post that I had been awake half the night due to my landlord's alarm system. While the system didn't actually go off, I think that might actually have been preferable, since normally when alarm systems are triggered, they ring, the central sends the cops and disengages the system once the cops get there, end of story. However, when your landlord has his alarm system connected to the home phone and then has the signal forwarded to his cell phone and the cell phone loses it's connection to the tower because the aforementioned landlord has gone to his cottage for the weekend in the middle of nowhere, it's another story. This will, I can tell you from experience, cause the alarm system to emit a hi-low beep that will go on and on and on and on and leave you wondering what in the name of Bob's pants is wrong. This is what happened to me in the middle of the night Sunday into Monday. I was woken up at 2:45 A.M. by a very persistent screeching coming from my AWOL landlord's apartment. I poked around to see where the sound was coming from, made sure it didn't smell like smoke, because for all I knew it could have been his smoke detector and made sure the power was still on. After 20 minutes of screaching and hearing a few suspicious noises that I was not entirely sure were being caused by the wind, I did what any good citizen would have done and dialed 9-1-1. They sent the cops who rang the doorbell to try and scare off anyone who might have been inside, then one of them stayed in front while the other checked to make sure my door was fine (my apartment has a private entrance) and then went to check the back door of the landlord's place and their balcony. No one was creeping around, so they left and I was doomed to listen to the screaching all.bloody.night!!! I finally fell back to sleep around 4:30 A.M., but it was not a very restful sleep and when I got up in the morning I was about ready to break in upstairs and rip the landlord's alarm system off the wall. He got home with his family around 10:00 A.M. and called the company who found the problem and made sure that the next time my landlord's cell phone goes out of range, his alarm system will not harass me, or the neighbors, or the people on the second floor. I can't wait to move to a new apartment in June, which will-and I will make sure of this- be alarm system free, except for basic security at the front door. You know, buzzers and all that stuff :o)