Visual doorbell in a rental home
May 24, 2014 6:04 PM Subscribe
What is the easiest, cheapest, least intrusive way to have a light go on in my basement when someone pushes a button at my front door?
I play drums pretty loudly in my basement, usually when I'm home alone. This afternoon I finished practicing for a while only to come upstairs to a neighbor at my door who had been knocking for a while to ask me to quiet down because a houseguest of their was a night shift nurse who was trying to sleep. I gave my neighbor my phone number in case something like that ever happens again, but in case someone doesn't have a way to contact me I'd like to be alerted to their presence in some way.
One of my drummer friends growing up had his dad rig up a second doorbell attached to a light bulb in the basement that would come on when someone pushed the button. Is there a way to accomplish something like this in a rental home? I'm pretty handy, but I don't want to go drilling holes and splicing wires here. I've seen a few wireless doorbell solutions on Amazon, but the lights on those seem like they're secondary to the tone, which is useless to me in this situation. I'd like something simple and bright; rigging the doorbell directly to a light socket with an incandescent bulb in it would be ideal.
I play drums pretty loudly in my basement, usually when I'm home alone. This afternoon I finished practicing for a while only to come upstairs to a neighbor at my door who had been knocking for a while to ask me to quiet down because a houseguest of their was a night shift nurse who was trying to sleep. I gave my neighbor my phone number in case something like that ever happens again, but in case someone doesn't have a way to contact me I'd like to be alerted to their presence in some way.
One of my drummer friends growing up had his dad rig up a second doorbell attached to a light bulb in the basement that would come on when someone pushed the button. Is there a way to accomplish something like this in a rental home? I'm pretty handy, but I don't want to go drilling holes and splicing wires here. I've seen a few wireless doorbell solutions on Amazon, but the lights on those seem like they're secondary to the tone, which is useless to me in this situation. I'd like something simple and bright; rigging the doorbell directly to a light socket with an incandescent bulb in it would be ideal.
Here's a wireless doorbell with a strobe light, which might be more helpful than just an incandescent bulb turning on.
posted by suedehead at 6:58 PM on May 24, 2014
posted by suedehead at 6:58 PM on May 24, 2014
Doorbells for deaf and hard of hearing people might be what you're looking for. Here's a thread with some suggestions:
www.alldeaf.com/deaf-products-technologies/110912-doorbell-deaf-suggestion.html
posted by mgar at 11:14 AM on May 26, 2014
www.alldeaf.com/deaf-products-technologies/110912-doorbell-deaf-suggestion.html
posted by mgar at 11:14 AM on May 26, 2014
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Etrigan at 6:06 PM on May 24, 2014