I don't consider myself 'cheap'...but I do take a certain satisfaction in achieving a particular goal efficiently (and sometimes that appears the same as cheap. But whatever...) For example....
During the first day in the apartment; the landlord pointed to a phone-like device on the wall and said, 'That is the intercomm'. Fair enough....at the building's main door there is a series of buttons you can press to 'buzz' the alarm/phone in a given apartment. It's pretty much exactly what I remember seeing in countless buildings in the United States.
It wasn't until some poor guy looking for the bed & breakfast next door rang the apartment at 2am by mistake, did I realize there was no way to turn it off (I also feel bad for the poor guy who accidently pressed the wrong button and was greeted by an angry, half-dressed, barefoot, yelling American...but that's another story). The second time it happened (only a week or two later, but a different person) it was time to take slightly more drastic measures....
The new and improved, 'Silent Buzzer' resolves the noise problem
A hard 'slap and pull' and I had discovered the 'silent mode' previously undocumented on the intercom system. Arguably, the only down side to this approach is that it worked exactly the same as having no intercom system at all. Leaving it broken wasn't too bad of an idea, but I like to get the occassional delivery (so long as it's not at 2am). I took a quick look online to see what it would cost to replace the whole unit with one that has an 'off' switch. Not cheap. So, off I went, in search of a switch. And this is what I came up with....for less than 1 euro.
Left: Off position
Right: On position
I think it's a fix worthy of an entry on There, I Fixed It