Horror Story

i went to look at an alarm today.... usual call, alarm not working can you come and fix it... turned up to find a optima compact, located on the stairs... no power on pirs. ask if it was okay to open it up. took out the two screws and carefully lifted off both covers. first thing i notices was were the transformer should have being were the words 'loft' next thing, date on the battery was 1998, and it was not even connected. hence no power........one pair of an 8 core looked like at one time could have supplyed the ac power from the tranformer. checked for voltage...nope... only one thing for it . climbed into the loft, with meter in pocket in search of whatever 'loft' meant. to my horror i found the tranformer sitting on a laminate board without a cover on with a feed in from a lighting circuit 240v and a feed out down a pair from a 8 core. fornately somebody had being before and disconnected the mains feed. so not danger of fire....... client asked if it had being put in by a professional. did not want to offend with a reply..........