Do-it-yourself nightmare: Alarm clock stuck in wall has gone off for 13 years

PITTSBURGH, Pennsylvania (WABC) -- For a Pittsburgh man, a do-it-yourself job has become a source of annoyance -- for the last 13 years.

There is an alarm clock stuck inside his wall -- and it just keeps going off.

Jerry Lynn said he dropped the clock, tied to a string, through an air vent. He set it to go off 10 minutes later, to let him know where to punch a hole in the wall to pass a wire through for a television hookup.

"I'll show you where this thing started out from and why it was convenient," he said. "Or, at least, I thought it was convenient at the time."

But then he hit a snag.

"As I was laying down, all of a sudden, I hear it go 'thunk' as it came loose," he said. "Well, that's not a real problem. It's still gonna go off. And it did."

He couldn't pull it back up, but he figured eventually it would simply run out of battery power.

"That was in September of 2004," he said. "It is still going off every day. During Daylight Savings Time, it goes off at 10 minutes to eight at night, and during regular Standard Time, it goes off at 10 minutes to seven at night."

His wife Sylvia said the sudden ring can come as a jolt to unsuspecting guests.

"It starts with a soft beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep," she said. "And it gets louder and more closer together."