Our dispatcher gave us a call to check out a security
light call. He said that the customer was irate and could not give us any
specifics, other than drug dealers and tampering with company equipment. It
was after dark when we arrived in the alley and the customer met us in the
yard. He brought us to the side of the house so 'they' couldn't hear us
talking and proceeded to tell us that a remote control device had been placed
in the company owned security light at the back of his property. He stated
that he had called the Company and Police several times, but no one would take
care of the matter. We asked him to explain, so he had us sneak to the edge
of the house and told us to watch. We could see the loading dock of a small
warehouse directly behind the customer's house, where several employees were
taking a smoke break. After about a minute the HPS security light cycled off
(bad bulb or starter board). "They just shut off the light by remote
control," he informed us in a whisper. "Now they are smoking dope or shooting
up and dealing their drugs. They will turn it back on when they are
done." After a couple of minutes, the light cycled back on and the warehouse
workers were gone, no doubt their break over. It was all that we could do to
keep a straight face, he was so serious about it, but we tried to explain the
problem we had been having with this type of light. We proceeded to go up
to work on the light, after deciding to change the fixture to try to satisfy
the customer. We asked the customer to watch from inside his house while my
partner stood guard and call 911 if anything happened. After the head was
changed out, the customer rushed out and wanted to see the cutoff device. We
showed him the fixture and he immediately pointed to the starter board and
cried 'there it is'. My partner and I looked at each other and I thanked him
for letting us know. We said that we would turn this over to the Police and
for him to call in again if another device was installed. We haven't had any
more calls since, having cured this neighborhood drug problem.