Flashing the neighbors and the police...

Yes, you read it right. Wayne and I have been flashing our neighbors and the police were called. So embarrassing!
Before you disown us as family and friends... let me elaborate.
We have a yard renovation project going on at our house. As part of this, we have installed a new lamp post. It's one of those with three separate lamps on one post. Very attractive. The only problem was it didn't come with a built in sensor that automatically turns it on at dusk and off at sunrise. My husband, being a man who can do anything, installed one on the post himself.
I'm so impressed with his skills. As evening approached the first night after the big install my son and I looked out the window to witness this.....

Apparently, the 300 Watts of brilliance was just too much 'daylight' for the little sensor and it got terribly confused as to whether it was day or night! (Please, don't yell at me about wasted energy... we know, 300 Watts is over the top but those are the bulbs that came with the lamp!)

My man quickly determined the problem and had a solution in record time. He fashioned a sort of 'hood' for the sensor so it wouldn't be blinded by the light. He stuck it up there in temporary mode until he had more time to make it a permanent fixture. It was late, it worked all night long, great success.

Fast forward to the next day... moving day for our youngest (further details of this in the next post). Up early and on the road we were out of town all day and into the night not returning home until around midnight. About 9:00 pm and three hours away from being home, we receive a phone call from our daughter who said a neighbor had called her trying to locate us with news that our lamp post was 'flashing'. Within a few minutes, I receive another call from the same daughter saying she'd received a text from a friend telling her that there were a 'bunch of police' at our house and she wanted to know if everything was alright. Oh brother!

We debated never returning home but exhaustion got the best of us and so we did. We discovered that thankfully, one of the police officers that had been 'on scene' was also an electrician and recognized the problem immediately and placed a small piece of duct tape over the confused sensor and the light continued to beam it's guiding light for lost travelers within three counties. We were frankly hoping it would be out so we could skulk back into our house undetected by our previously annoyed neighbors.

For tonight, we've disconnected the stinkin' lamp and tomorrow we will be replacing the bulbs with energy efficient low watters and making that
ingenious repair a permanent fixture of our new, lovely lamp post.