The phantom doorbell
A friend of mine (let's call him "Bob") bought a house from somebody who was emigrating to New Zealand. For about a month, the doorbell worked, ringing out lovely deep chimes in the hallway. All who visited commented on how nice they were. Then it stopped working.

He surmised that the batteries needed replacing. Only one problem - he couldn't find the chimes. "Oh well," he thought, "I'll just follow the cable from the bell push." Next problem - it's a wireless bell push, so no dice. He searched high and low for the chimes, but came up empty-handed every time.

I know what you're thinking. Everybody who heard the story thought it.

"If I go round there, I bet I could find it."

So we went round and looked, many of us. Nobody could find it.

A couple of weeks later, Bob started some major decorating and ripped the entire downstairs apart, walls and all. Guess what he found? That's right - absolutely nothing.

He then happened to have to speak to the original owner in NZ about the sale, so he asked him about the doorbell. He told Bob that the doorbell had NEVER worked because, he assumed, there were no chimes and the owner before him must have removed them.

This was getting downright weird. We all knew we'd heard them. Bob just shrugged, put a knocker on the door and left it a mystery.

That was over a year ago.

I've just had a call from Bob.

"I've discovered what happened to the doorbell," he said, "because now it's working again".

It seems that his new next door neighbour had put new batteries in her doorbell, because hers didn't work either. Lo and behold, Bob's had started ringing again too. It seems that for some reason, Bob's wireless doorbell push had been causing next door's chimes to go off - the previous neighbours had removed the batteries because it kept ringing when nobody was at the door and it was very loud. So loud, in fact, that Bob had been hearing it in his own hallway through the adjoining wall.

He has now removed the doorbell push.
( finnbar has officially retired, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:30, 3 replies)

hee
Spoooooooky!!!!
(Lurkaloid awarded wanking black belt on, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:37, closed)

Heheh, I love it
I have a similar story involving sunlight, an orange wall and an Arcam Black Box digital-to-analogue converter, but I won't bore you with the details :P
(JohabMorelli is spenging merrily away, Thu 3 Jul 2008, 14:54, closed)

*click*
It's like when you have one of those electric blankets with separate heating zones so that each person can control how hot their side of the bed is, and you swap controls so that one person freezes while the other bakes...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Thu 3 Jul 2008, 17:35, closed)