A FIRE alarm in a block of flats which kept beeping for 12 days has been fixed after a tenant contacted The Argus.

Residents of Theobald House in Blackman Street, Brighton, were worried the system was disabled.

They had to put up with the piercing, high-pitched noise on the ground floor as they came and went or waited for the lift.

Engineers visited four times over almost two weeks and the system was reset each time but not fixed.

The beeping began again almost immediately after each call.

But the problem was finally resolved within five hours of The Argus asking Brighton and Hove City Council what was being done to fix it.

Berkeley Adams, 50, who lives in the block, contacted us on Tuesday.

He said: “This has been going on for 12 days. The first time it took them three days to send an engineer.

“They’ve been out four times. Last time I heard the guy say ‘but it will just go off again, do you really just want me to reset it?’ on the phone.

“I just think it’s outrageous after what happened in London that they would delay with something when they know there’s a problem.

“I asked the engineer ‘does this mean we don’t have a fire alarm working?’ and he said ‘yes’.”

The Argus contacted Brighton Housing Repairs, which refused to comment.

But the matter was resolved within hours of us contacting the council.

A spokesman said the fault was with a back-up battery and the fire alarm itself had been working throughout.

He confirmed the battery had been changed that afternoon.

He said: “We are sorry for any concern caused to residents of Theobald House and assure them that the fire alarm and service has continued to be fully functional.”

Mr Adams said yesterday: “It’s stopped now.

“I was worried it wasn’t working, that’s why I called the paper.

“It was worrying. You worry about the fire alarm, it sounded like something was wrong.

“They put no notice up for residents and it shouldn’t have taken so long.

“I’d like to say thank you to The Argus for what they did, it got the problem sorted which was great.”