Harrisburg Family Dollar responds to noisy overnight false alarms

HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) — He doesn’t shop there often, but for most of the nearly a decade the Family Dollar store at 18th and Derry has been across the street from where Mohamed Kharabiesh lives, he felt it sure beat the vacant lot it replaced.

“But now I regret that,” Kharabiesh said. “I’m not so happy for them to be around.”

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That’s because for what he estimates to be the past four and a half months, a loud siren has blared, first occasionally and now — he says — more nights than not, most recently last night from about 3 to 3:30 a.m.

Betsy Fisher said she couldn’t sleep last night either, despite closing her bedroom window and running the air conditioning — just to drown out the noise — on a pleasant night when she wanted to enjoy the fresh air. And — in her case — despite living three blocks away.

One of Kharabiesh’s neighbors, who asked not to be identified, said they had to take a sick day off work after being awakened by the alarm and then being unable to fall back asleep.

Both Kharabiesh and Fisher said they tried contacting store managers, the alarm company and police and couldn’t get anywhere. The alarm company and police said the system wasn’t transmitting anything to them despite the loud local noise. A Family Dollar manager told Kharabiesh the property’s landlord that the store was responsible. He then called abc27 News.

“I know you’re going to solve the problem,” Kharabiesh said. “I have good faith in you and your station.”

Sure enough, Family Dollar’s corporate team responded quickly to abc27 News saying they were on the case, they wanted to be a good neighbor — and the alarms will stop.

Family Dollar is a subsidiary of Dollar Tree.

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