Alarm proves to be a noisy problem for Fourways resident
FOURWAYS – After two years of being disturbed by a siren alarm located on Crawford Pre-Primary School, Fourways resident Reinhard Korb has decided to lodge a complaint with the City.
When Fourways resident Reinhard Korb bought his house four years ago, he chose it because it was a peaceful location in an otherwise busy city. But over the past two years, he has been regularly disturbed by a siren alarm going off on the premises of a nearby school.
Korb’s house is situated off of Witkoppen Road in the Fourways area, relatively near the Crawford Pre-Primary School located on Randa Road. Since late 2018 a security alarm located at the school has been randomly triggered, creating a loud noise sometimes as often as 15 times a week that will happen at various times during the day. After approaching the school a number of times about the matter, Korb has decided to lay a noise complaint with the City.
“I didn’t think twice when it came to buying this house, I loved how peaceful it was here,” Korb told the Fourways Review from his veranda. “But in late November 2018, I started hearing an alarm go off regularly and loudly. It took me a while to identify where it was coming from, I asked around and determined that it was the school.”
Korb approached Crawford about the matter, and for a while the alarm stopped.
“For most of 2019 the alarm didn’t go at all, and I thought the matter was resolved. But late in the year it began again. It definitely seems to be affected by wet weather, as when the rains came in November 2019 it started up again.
“I understand the need for security of course, but these are false alarms. My idea is, instead of a loud alarm, why don’t they make it so that the alarm is sent to a security control room?
“I spoke to the school again in November and mentioned that I didn’t want to be stuck with the problem over the December holidays when no one was at school. They said they would fix it, but all through December it was still going off. In the first two or three weeks that the school was open [in 2020], I talked to the school again.”
On 29 January, Korb approached the City to find out how to lay a noise complaint about the issue, which he is working on compiling now. When contacted for comment on the matter, the school acknowledged the issue with the silent alarm which caused it to go off at inconvenient times.
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“We apologise for the disruption in the area.,” said Shelley Carroll, the brand marketing and sales manager for Crawford Schools in a written statement. “Our school has an electric fence which surrounds the property and is regularly triggered by the wildlife in the area. We have many frogs, lizards and big birds that periodically activate the alarm.
“We consistently manage the foliage from all the indigenous trees, however, there has been an increase in the activations and we are in the process of diverting the siren to have a silent alarm.
“Security within the community remains a constant concern and we do apologise for any inconvenience.”
Details: www.joburg.org.za
