My friend Selina is staying in my house while I am in Edinburgh - so bad luck burglars, don't even think of breaking in cos she'll be there. And she's really muscly and big and is a man and has a gun. Yes.
I was taking her through things to watch out for in my house. I have two burglar alarm systems, a new one and an old one. I don't have any codes or anything for the old one and hadn't known how to turn it off and once after a power cut it had gone off. The only way to turn it off had been (I thought) to pull the wires out of the box outside. I mentioned this to Selina and said it was unlikely to happen again because of that.
But spookily as we walked into the kitchen and passed the box for the old burglar alarm system it suddenly went off. Not the speaker I had disconnected, but another one in the actual unit. What are the chances? Really, that's a bit spooky. I think my house is haunted.
We didn't know how to turn it off and so floundered around before getting a screw driver and opening the box and again pulling the wire out of the speaker. This stopped the sound, but lights were still flashing and the box was hot and there was a smell of electricity in the air. The lead to the mains disappeared under the units and so I thought there was no way to find out where it was plugged in (and in fact presumbed it just ran straight into the wall and didn't have a plug). We debated undoing the wires that connected the mains of the box. Would the wires still be live once they weren't connected up to the box? Would we thus electrocute ourselves if we did that? Selina tried to pull them out, but we needed a little screw-driver. I was pretty convinced that that would be dangerous (and as I've just found out, it would have been and I would probably have died). It was evening and I was leaving first thing in the morning and Selina isn't moving in til Monday (so burglars may have spotted a window of opportunity - good luck - though I should point out my friend Andrew is also staying and he is a serial killer who likes to starve people in a specially constructed well). I was a bit worried that it might all get too hot and start a fire before then.
But I left it anyway. What else could I do?
Later I went and pulled on the mains lead and realised that I could remove a bit of wood from under the units and follow it back. Then I found it was plugged into a plug under the sink. So I was able to turn it off.
I felt like the cleverest and most practical man alive.
My other alarm system is still functioning though, so don't think about breaking in burglars. Though of course you will be able to stop the alarm going off by simply finding the plug and then turning everything off.
I should point out that I have very little of worth and am taking most of it with me. Which is just now giving carte blanche to the Edinburgh burglars to find out where I am and steal everything from my probably unalarmed flat.
I am more worried about the ghost that lives in my house and set off the alarm to be honest.
