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That time I installed a system in a haunted house in St. Louis
I had a job last month at an old Victorian house on Russell Boulevard, and every time I ran a wire through the attic, the motion detector on the first floor would go off for no reason. Turns out there was a raccoon family living in the wall, but for about 20 minutes I was ready to quit the trade. Has anyone else had an animal trigger false alarms in a way that made you look bad in front of the client?
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parker_thomas8d agoProlific Poster
Ha, you mentioned "blamed a ghost" and that's exactly what I used to do. I used to be the guy that would joke about ghosts to clients when weird stuff happened. But one time I was wiring a place in Soulard and the zone went off every 20 minutes, dead of night, no animals. I was convinced it was paranormal. Then I realized the client had one of those cheap Chinese motion sensors that would pick up the heat from the AC vent cycling on. After that, I stopped joking about ghosts and started checking the equipment first.
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uma_johnson5d ago
Little correction - heat detection isn't really the issue with those cheap PIR sensors. It's more about them being overly sensitive to rapid temperature changes in the field of view. AC kicking on creates a sharp temperature differential that fools the sensor into thinking there's movement. I've seen the same thing happen with HVAC registers near poorly placed detectors in older St Louis buildings.
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