When we first moved here we discovered the house came with a security light. The kind of thing that senses movement and then burns out your retina with a blast of white light. Not so much a matter of security either, as a cat walking by, a leaf etc would be enough to set it off. We would ignore it if we saw the light go on via the window, as it was always nothing. It shone straight into the neighbours window, and they ignored it too. They must have got used to it…. their living room suddenly lighting up because I was rash enough to walk to the bin.
It wasn’t just the blinding light, or the risk of aircraft landing by our back door, but the cost of all that energy.. particularly if only to light the way of next door’s cat to our cat flap.
We looked at the distribution board and pulled the fuse marked ‘security light’. Obvious huh. Apart from then we found the freezer in the utility room stopped working. The electrics here are interesting to say the least. So resignedly turned it back on, with a view to doing something about it very soon.
Very soon took a while, and in the interval the light just stopped working. The light wasn’t broken.. something was going wrong with the wiring between fusebox and light.. and we couldn’t find where as it was somewhere in the part the wires vanish into the gloom between walls… This, I found worrying.
Himself is much calmer about electricity, having worked with electronics etc.. but to me it’s some sort of black art.. and not to be messed with… and the fact we still have Bakelite fittings etc don’t combine well with the phrase ‘it’s broken somewhere, but I am not sure where’
Anyway, we had soon found that some sort of outside light was necessary as its actually really dark out the back of our home. Many a night would find us shuffling with a particular not-wanting-to-step-on-a-toad manner just to get as far as the car.
So the combination of my paranoia and the shuffly toad walk was too much and we made an investment. Actually only thirty quid, on a solar powered security light.The dodgy wiring disconnected, the old unit freecycled and now we can find our way (and next door’s cat to our house too) all for free.
It’s brilliant, the teeny solar panel enough to charge up the light for as many uses as we could want (and with all the sheep checks we know it works all night) , even on a dismal winters day. The light is a calm blue, plenty to find our way about, but with retinas attached.
