Tag: Noise

How do I stop my fridge alarm?

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It’s the MOST annoying thing! My fridge freezer has been icing up a lot lately and I’ve defrosted it a couple of times although it’s meant to do it automatically. We found out a couple of years ago it has a very noisy alarm and we ended up calling out a gas engineer because the noise was coming from near the gas boiler. But no it was the fridge. So at about 2.30am it started going off. I’ve turned it off and defrosted it. I cleared the vents at the back of the freezer which were a bit blocked. I unplugged it (but it must have a battery to keep it going). I plugged it back in because I don’t want my frozen food to spoil and the motor is still working. I checked the door seals, they are fine. So I’m left with a loud beeping (swear words) fridge freezer. In a small house, where you can’t get away from the noise, so I did a load of washing. At 3am.

Any ideas? I can’t sleep because of it. I’m watching TV news while I try and rest to take my mind off it. I may buy a new one but Monday is a Bank Holiday. I don’t think I can wait till Tuesday! Help… Plus the cats are fed up!

Fireworks

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No photos of last night’s fireworks! This was from two years ago, January 1st 2021. It was far too noisy last night. The cats were frantic as what seemed like hundreds of fireworks went off in about ten minutes around where we live. Bang, Boom, Crash, Flash. I had the curtains closed but could still see flashes of light through them. I just talked calmly to the cats and turned the sound up on the television to drown out the noise. After about twenty minutes it calmed down and the cats relaxed. The amount of money spent on fireworks last night must have been huge. I wish they would only sell quiet fireworks. I think you can get them.

Boom

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Tomorrow is November 5th, Bonfire night, Guy Fawkes night. He tried to blow up the houses of Parliament several centuries ago. There is a rhyme. Remember remember the fifth of November, Gunpowder, Treason and Plot.

Apparently gunpowder had been stored under the Houses of Parliament and a group of people intended to blow it up, but the ringleader, Guy Fawkes was caught. Traditionally children collect money to buy fireworks by making a ‘Guy’ out of scraps and wood, and asking for a ‘penny for the Guy’. This usually happened after Halloween.

So tomorrow night I’m expecting lots of bangs and whizzes. The cats will be in. I’ll have the TV on to drown out the noise. Hopefully everything will be OK.

Alarmed?

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Why did my smoke alarm just go off? No smoke, no pans left on, no flames rising from the computer. No fire outside in the garden. There must be a reason. I randomly asked Google the question ‘can spiders set smoke alarms off?’, I got the answer above. We tried blowing and detritus out of it, but when hubby put it back together it did it again. Why? I don’t know, but we will be buying a new smoke alarm tomorrow.

Beep beeeep!

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I came home from panto rehearsal (I was just watching) and there was a loud beeping coming from the house. I got in and hubby shouted over the noise. He said it had just started and he couldn’t find where it was coming from. We narrowed it down to near the gas boiler. He had already turned off the boiler, also unplugged the fridge freezer below it, unplugged everything in the kitchen and switched off the central heating.

He had also taken the battery out of the smoke alarm and carbon monoxide alarm. He was at a loss of where the noise was coming from.

What to do? Half an hour if searching. We thought there might be a smoke alarm fallen behind the fridge freezer, hubby pulled it away from the wall. Nothing, except dust. So we rang the emergency gas engineer.

He arrived after an hour. The sound was so loud. He checked everywhere. He said it sounded low down from the fridge? He moved it.. The noise stopped!

Modern fridge freezers are fitted with alarms! Who knew? They can go off for all sorts of reasons. Not enough ventilation, unbalanced, damaged door seals, freezers needing defrosting. I think we need a new fridge freezer. It’s too warm in the fridge and too cold in the freezer.

Never rains but it pours!

Rat-a-tat-cat!

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I’m convinced our outdoor cat thinks the cat flap is a door knocker! When he wants to come in he rattles it (it’s locked to keep our indoor cats in and other cats, that roam the garden, out).

Tonight I was washing up and rattle – bang-rattle-tap, tap, tap! I didn’t open the door straight away so the cat flap did another bang and crash…

Then, outdoor cat scoots in, eats two pouches of food, some cat milk, some cat treats, then the emploring look ‘can I go out again?’ no doubt he will be back later….

Fireworks

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Bang! Crash! Flash!

It’s not bonfire night and yet fireworks are going off all over the place tonight! Don’t know why but it sounds horrendous. When I opened the back door to let the cat in he didn’t want to come in though. He’s a tough outdoor cat. He prefers being outside. So I gave him extra food. I keep going to the door and calling him, that wsy if he does decide he wants to be in I can let him in….. I’ll put him some more food out later…. At least the whiz bang crashes seem to have settled down now!

Noise nuisance

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I just read a post on Facebook about a friend who’s neighbours THREE streets away are constantly playing loud music with a strong base beat. I suggested this and remembered a time a long time ago when I had similar problems…

“Can you reply by sitting outside his house in your car with your speakers on full blast playing Mozart?”

“When our old neighbours years ago used to play loud pop music I would wait till it went off late at night then play Mahler or Brahms through the wall at them, full blast…. Talk about passive aggressive. In the end it was so bad it kept the neighbour on the other side awake and she was eight months pregnant. I finally snapped and took my personal alarm, pulled the pin out of it and put my hand through the neighbours letterbox. (it was a terraced house). No one came to the door, so I went to the other neighbour and explained what I’d done. I was just coming out of there and my student neighbours started to come out to catch a taxi to the city centre. I stopped them and asked if they were at the local polytechnic. When they said yes, I asked if that meant they were intelligent. Because wasn’t it obvious that the noise they were making was disturbing their neighbours? They said it hadn’t mattered in the halls of residence, so I politely pointed out this was the ‘real’ world. A bit later the police arrived. I explained what I’d done and they decided to take no action!

X

People

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The door stands in the way. But I can hear people outside, running along the pavement, downhill, then up. A couple of car doors slam. An engine starts, quietly. I want to look out, but the door is firmly locked. It’s late. I could look out of the window, but that means parting the curtains, giving the game away.

A little later…. All is calm again, the mad thunder of feet has receded, I heard my bin lid thud down, but I’m not going to look. Possibly an old beer can? It’s happened before.

I don’t really like living with my front door on the pavement. I wish we had a front garden. There is a garden at the side of our house,iit’s ours, full of trees and bushes. Local people dump beer cans and fag packets in our hedge. Life, and people, have been quieter lately. But if I was put on a desert island I would be OK.

I spoke too soon, cars (with people in) crashing down  their gears, rushing to get up the hill. Sometimes they seem to race each other.

If, and when the lockdown ends, I will have to get used to people again.

3am again

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There’s a bright star,

high in the sky.

It’s 3am again,

and I’m driven to wake,

to write

Like an owl I stay awake,

listening to cars,

passing.

So few in these days,

often in the past,

there would be footsteps,

or shouting.

Now there is silence,

deep in this city,

only the odd murmur of traffic.

The click and whir of central heating,

the maniacal hum of the fridge,

the oil heater thermostat kicking in.

Freezing night,

3am,

too early for the dawn chorus.

The rest of the city sleeps, perhaps….

Unsettled dreams

Of corn fields,

clay fields,

beaches and trees,

freedom,

escape from imprisonment,

at 3am I shall sleep.