how not to make your neighbors hate you

[egypturnash]

Peggy's Guide for Auto Mechanics, Step One: turn off the goddamn car alarm.

The folks in the building next door were disobeying this rule. Three time in rapid succession, I heard an alarm go off. It'd go through its cycle, then, as mandated by law, stop. And in two or three seconds it got re-triggered.

I looked outside, and there were the culprits - three people gathered around a car in their back yard, with the hood open, trying to work on it. I decided to whap them upside the head with a clue-by-four: I stepped out on the balcony and hollered something like "Hey! If you're going to work on your car then turn the stupid car alarm off first!" And the woman of the trio looked up with this tilt of her head (a tilt and a facial expression fraught with imperious indignation, I must add - how dare someone object to this noise? I can take it, why can't she?) and started to holler back "Why are you HARASSING me?" and some other imprecation that was obscured by... someone from the other direction shouting agreement with me, in ruder terms.

I vanished back into my apartment, giggling a little. I'd opened the floodgates.

And, of course, kept an eye on them. Woman was brandishing cel-phone with ambiguous intent and some vague threat of calling... someone. I wandered out to watch again; she saw me and started trying to gain my sympathy a little with something that essentially boiled down to "we're sorry but we've gotta do this, we don't know anything about cars but we're working on this anyway" - while the older of the two guys was behind her, making clear 'no, no, please ignore her, no, don't say anything, we know, we'll deal with this' kinds of hand-waving gestures and expressions. In a bit the alarm went off again, and actually stopped quickly: one guy was poking under the hood and the other was in the car, making it stop. While the woman was just standing there watching.

Then they seem to have given up, after some more hollering between various neighbors.

I guess that car's not going anywhere today. Oh well. Plans abandoned. I can't say I have any sympathy because this is far from the first time that alarm's gone off several times in a row. If you can't even make the thing stop screaming that it's being stolen, I seriously doubt you can figure out how to fix whatever's broken...

10:09. Was wandering around the apartment eating some chips (direct from the bag, I am a slob) and looked out. What I think is the extended family was in the back yard discussing the broken car and the pissed-off neighbors. Madam Haughty darted a dirty look up towards my window and may have seen me, as she looked again with a dirtier look. I just kinda did a sneer and an attitudey head-shake back on the off chance she saw me. I'm thinking of taking a quick shower, then slouching on the balcony with a book and a glass of Coke, the balcony door open, and some difficult music oozing out, just so I can smile and wave happily whenever she beams her ire at me. But I probably shouldn't. Because this is how feuds start. Maybe I'll just go for a walk instead and giggle now and then thinking of her raging hate.

Comments

[martes.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of how, the week after the Northridge Quake when we were getting big aftershocks daily, people would still leave their car alarms on. So, naturally after every aftershock a bunch of car alarms would go off. Several times a day. Idiots.

[radd.livejournal.com]

I blame the parents. Their parents should have read them "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" when they were children, then they might possibly understand that if their freakin' car alarm goes off every 5 minutes, if someone really does break into their car, no one, including themselves, are going to realize it, even though the car alarm is blaring.

Of course, their parents' parents should have explained to their kids that doing drugs while pregnant is a bad thing, and that letting their kids eat paint chips is equally bad.

[shatterstripes.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Nobody pays any attention to car alarms any more, not in the city. You just figure "oh, that moron forgot to turn off the alarm before opening the door like they do every damn morning," or "oh, someone looked funny at a car with an oversensitive alarm."

I have to wonder in this case... how they you even think to try and figure out what's wrong with the car with that thing screaming "HELP! KIDNAPPING! MURDER! FIRE! RAPE!" (metaphorically; it's just the normal cycle of several different sirens we're all so familiar with) right in their face? People are so desensitized to noise.

[ovon.livejournal.com]

All the alarms of that style (boooooooeep! boooooooeep! GANK GANK GANK GANK) must be the work of one company. I wonder if the designers ever hear it and think, "Ahhh, that's my baby!" Or is it "dear God, what have I done?"

I remember sitting in a coffee shop with one of those going off right outside the door, repeatedly, over a span of about twenty minutes. It was a convertible, with the top down. The urge to buy a carton of milk and empty it into the upholstery was almost irresistible.

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

Whenever I hear a car alarm go off pointlessly, I'm always surprised someone hasn't smashed the windshield in with a bat by now.

I also think of the scene from "Repo Man" where two of the repo men break into a car, and the alarm goes off... and they just ignore it... and so does the whole neighborhood.

[turbinerocks.livejournal.com]

Though a car alarm that actually screamed "MURDER!" would be pretty funny.

[zrath.livejournal.com]

Back in the mists of time, my mom had a car that came with a Viper (tm) alarm.
That's the one that says "please step away from the vehicle" if you stand too close to the car.
And when the alarm goes off, it also screams "I've been tempered with!!".

Dear god I hated that thing.

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

Such inconsiderate use of car alarms ultimately has it's own justice. When such a car is stolen, nobody will do anything to stop it because of the thing "crying wolf" so often.

[dustmeat.livejournal.com]

There are a few revenge tricks that would not be suspected, but that would be too evil. Continue as you are doing.

[esche.livejournal.com]

Near the house I live in when I lived in Pennsylvania, there was a guy who had his car alarm set to like, 'detect light breeze', so that it'd go off if a mouse hiccuped two counties away.

And there were a bunch of feral city-cats who would invariably walk over the hood of his car at least once per night. So, y'know, four AM when I'm just settling down for a nice nap...

There were many nights when I considered putting a brick with an attached note reading "Yeah, your car alarm does a fucking stellar job of preventing vandalism, DOUCHEBAG." through his windshield. But, y'know, such things are frowned upon in polite society.

I'm not sure, even to this day, but I think the owner of this car -- an Iroc, oh the shock and amazement -- might have been the same asshole who called the cops on us because we were sitting on our front porch shooting the shit one afternoon.

[kinkyturtle.livejournal.com]

The note's a good idea! Just write one *threatening* to use a brick... NEXT time it goes off. >:}

[ghostangel.livejournal.com]

Car alarms tempt me to break things. Namely windows, and that lovely perfect paintjob. >:/