Report noise from an alarm

Who to report an alarm to

If you think there’s been a break in or attempted theft, phone Sussex Police.

If you think there’s a fire, contact East Sussex Fire & Rescue. 

If an alarm has been going off for at least 20 minutes in every hour, use our online Environmental Health report form during the week.

You can also phone 01273 294 266 between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.

Find out how to report other noise issues. 

What we need to know

When reporting a building alarm, please tell us the exact address. 

If you’re reporting a car alarm, please give us the location, make, model, colour and registration number of the vehicle.

This means we can check our records for any contact details to help us sort the issue as quickly as possible.

Where we can show an alarm is causing a problem, we’ll take all possible steps to contact the person responsible for it. Where that’s not possible, we may disable or silence the alarm.

We’ll get back any charges for silencing alarms and officer time from the person responsible for the alarm.

What we can do about a building alarm

If we can confirm that a building alarm is causing a nuisance and can’t contact the owners within an hour, we may disable it.

Where an alarm is on the outside of the building, we’ll hire an alarm engineer to disconnect it.

Where an alarm is inside the building, we’ll need to get a warrant from the magistrates to enter the property. This can take a long time. 

Once we have a warrant to enter, we’ll hire a locksmith and alarm engineer to enter the property, disable the alarm, and then re-secure the premises.

What we can do about a car alarm

If we can confirm that an alarm from a vehicle is causing a legal noise nuisance and can’t contact the owners within an hour, we’ll try to disable the alarm.

If we can’t disable the alarm or re-secure the vehicle, we may have the car towed away to a secure location.

This can be very expensive for the owner. Especially where we can't disable the alarm and we have to take the car to a remote location.

What you can do to prevent your alarm causing an issue

Make sure your alarm has a cut out device, which triggers after no more than 20 minutes. After this, the alarm should not sound again until it’s manually reset.

Register your house alarm with us. Once you've registered, we'll have the contact details of at least 2 keyholders who'll be able to turn the alarm off.

Make sure the registered keeper details for an alarmed vehicle are up to date. Include a phone number that you can be contacted on at all times.