Frat-house beer is cause for alarm

USC’s campus cops and city firefighters rushed to the Delta Tau Delta frat house after a fire alarm was activated, but they didn’t even find any smoke. Turned out there had been a short in the system, caused by some “beer leaking into a basement smoke detector.” (Tastes great! But fills the basement!)

Halloween leftovers: My wife is still talking about one trick-or-treater who knocked on our door in Long Beach -- a 50ish woman who was carrying her little one in her arms. The little one was a poodle. Alas, we didn’t have a Kit Kat bar for the hound.

Haunted house? Aaron Lewis of Santa Barbara found a funeral home with a name I hope doesn’t sound like “demon” (see photo).

Even scarier...: That’s how I’d describe the sound of the job title Steven Wayne saw posted by a grocery store (see photo).

Speaking of fears: “So many art galleries are scary to go into for people,” Karen Green told columnist David Allen of the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin. So Green, an artist who likes to turn discarded items into art pieces, chose a casual name for her shop (see photo -- do a double-take, if necessary). As for the elegant lettering, Green laughed and said, “People always think its ‘Craft.’ ”

Dueling warnings: This isn’t as frightening as entering an art gallery. But it would be a bit nerve-racking to attempt to drive into the parking garage spotted by Sherwin Olken if your vehicle is, say, 8 feet high (see photo). Do you gamble that the top posted restriction is correct or the bottom one? The “clearance” contradiction needs clearing up.

Just play dead: The noise level has been ratcheted up on one street in Huntington Beach. The Wave said a caller told police that his neighbor had been yelling into a bullhorn at another neighbor’s barking dog. Occasionally, the bullhorn-wielder would pause in his yelling -- and activate a siren. Bad adults! Bad!

miscelLAny: Yes, times have changed since Sept. 11, even for Caltech, proud planner of pranks. The Christian Science Monitor reports that when a student asked local police if he could drop a flurry of snow on the always-sunny Rose Parade as a gag, he didn’t receive “a simple yea or nay.” Instead, he was investigated.

Six police departments, as well as Homeland Security, contacted the student “before authorities dropped the case,” the newspaper reported.

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Steve Harvey can be reached at (800) LATIMES, Ext. 77083, by fax at (213) 237-4712, by mail at Metro, L.A. Times, 202 W. 1st St., L.A. 90012, and by e-mail at steve.harvey@latimes.com