Winnipeg telephone lines trigger false calls to 911

Police have shown up at a Winnipeg woman's door twice in the last week in response to "911 hang-up calls" coming from her address, she says.

"I was woken up very suddenly with doorbells ringing and hard thumping on my front door," Lisa Homenick said. "Apparently my phone had dialled 911 without me even doing it."

Police first showed up at Homenick's St. James home at 4:30 a.m. Wednesday, she said. After she explained she lives alone and did not call 911, they told her they suspected she hadn't, she said.

I think it's a horrible abuse of our tax money.- Lisa Homenick

"They told me 'We were expecting it to be a false alarm' because of the weather. They said they had attended to 15 to 16 false alarm calls already that evening," Homenick said. "I was kind of stunned."

Homenick said police explained to her the wet weather sometimes causes issues with above-ground telephone wires and 911 calls are triggered.

Homenick went back to bed only to have a different set of police officers show up again at 7:30 a.m. over another 911 phone call coming from her house.

"Again, this new police constable asked me if I had dialled and I said no, and they asked me if I had MTS and they wanted my phone number so they could make a record that this was a defective phone line," she said. 

Homenick said she reported the incidents to MTS and was told a service person would be out as early as next week.

"It's a horrible waste of taxpayers' money for the police to respond to these calls. MTS should be taking care of their own technology and preventing this from happening."

On Thursday afternoon, MTS hadn't responded to Wednesday afternoon email and telephone requests for comment.

In an e-mail, a spokesperson for the Winnipeg Police Service said it receives calls that are not true 911 calls for a number of reasons, "One of which is wire line trouble." There is no way to determine whether a call is a result of wire issues, so they cannot track how many calls of this nature come in, police said.

"In some cases we may hear static on the line; however, static may also be received on legitimate 911 dialled calls and again cannot be relied upon as a true indicator. These calls are processed the same as all other wire line calls where we are not able to make voice contact; we confirm the well-being of the parties involved."

Homenick said she asked that her MTS land line be shut down until the problem is fixed.

"I think it's a horrible abuse of our tax money," Homenick said. "I don't understand why it can't be weather-proofed."