I broke the lift

I swear, all I did was enter, press the usual floor button, the hit the "door close" button. Then this alarm sound started freaking out in the building. So I tried "door open", which fortunately worked, and I got out. The door slid close, the lift tried to go up to the floor I'd indicated (without me in it), and the madcap alarm went off again.

Rinse and repeat, a few times. By now, the alarm wouldn't stop going off.

And the thing about where we live is that even though we have two lifts serving the block, once one has gone up to any other floor, it won't come back down so long as the other is parked on the ground floor. So we have a situation in which the ground floor lift was trying its darnedest to leave the ground floor, dammit, and the one at a higher floor couldn't come down and get me, either, because it knew that its counterpart was already on the ground floor.

I gave up and took the stairs, calling the 1800 service number on the way up, only to have them tell me to call another 1800 number for the company that actually serviced my block of apartments. On the upside, both 1800 numbers were answered within 3 rings, so excellent service for after midnight, you guys. And by the time I was done talking to them, I had pretty much made my way up to the 11th floor where I live. Fortunately, it'd been raining all day so despite the unexpected exertions, I wasn't perspiring much.

The alarm seems to have stopped by now, so I think they fixed the problem. By the time I got to the second (correct) 1800 number, I was near the 9th floor (which, given the loudness of the alarm, seemed to be the source of the problem though neither lift was stuck at this floor), and the lady who answered was like, "Siren?" I was like, "Yep." And that was pretty much the end of the call.

The moral of the story is that if you live in an apartment that opens right up to the lift lobby, be prepared for weird midnight freakings-out of the lift sirens.