Ok, actual 911 dispatcher here, I have a few.

First one has actually happened twice, I’ve also heard a couple 911 recordings of this happening elsewhere

Caller is upstairs in their bedroom, and they hear some noises from downstairs. They start freaking out thinking someone is in their house.

I enter the call, stay on the line with them, and after a couple minutes a lightbulb goes off in their head, they crack open the door to hear a little better and say “nevermind, it was my Roomba”

The first time I think the caller’s boyfriend changed the schedule on her, and the second time the robot got caught on something and was making a lot of racket.

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Next one, I have a child caller, he’s freaking out because he got Kool aid powder in his eye and it stung. Now, that would be understandable if he was by himself, kids don’t know better, but I can hear his dad talking to him in the background. Now I’m sure this kid was freaking out and this was the only way he could get him to calm down but c’mon man, rinse the kids eyes out and tell him to suck it up, don’t make me go through all the motions of asking this kid if he wants an ambulance and getting him connected to poison control and shit, be a parent.

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Another call with poison control, it’s late at night, and this dude had just went to get himself a midnight snack. His wife had made 2 trays of cabbage rolls (ground beef wrapped in cabbage) she’d cooked one and left the other one raw intending to cook them the next day or freeze them or something. My caller chose poorly, and apparently ate more than one raw cabbage roll before realizing it.

He’s not having any symptoms, except for sort of a general disgust of having eaten raw meat. He’s not sure if he wants an ambulance, I eventually get him over to poison control because I was basically out of other options, and they basically tell him “look dude, you’re either gonna get food poisoning and spend a couple days throwing up and feeling like shit or you’re noto not really anything you can do about it”

Then he starts asking them about if he can go to the doctor to get prophylactic antibiotics or something. Just way blowing this whole thing out of proportion

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Another one was actually a legitimate call, but took a turn for the stupid somewhere in there. We had a domestic going on, one party was inside the house, the other party was outside, they’re standing at the front door yelling at each other.

We got calls from both halves, I had the people inside someone else had the person outside. I tell my caller to just close the door and wait for the police. They do. All should have been right with the world, parties are separated, I get all the information I needed and disconnect.

Except like 2 minutes later I see we now have EMS going to that address.

Because my idiot opened the door to continue arguing and got pepper sprayed.

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Caller sees a light flickering outside at a house several doors down from him. Thinks this is very suspicious. Officers go out there and close out the call with this disposition in the notes “Suspicious flickering light located, no criminal activity afoot”

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We have a homeless person who calls fairly frequently, probably has some mental health issues. She’s pretty harmless, mostly just wants the police to give her rides to different places she’s trying to get to. Sometimes they even do it for her, but of course taking someone to a bank at 2AM isn’t exactly a top priority for police, so sometimes her calls end up sitting in pending for a while. And no matter how many times we tell her that we still have her call and police will be out there when they can, she keeps calling in to ask for an ETA and to make sure they haven’t forgotten about her.

One night she’s getting really impatient, standing around in a parking lot for a couple hours in the middle of the night. At some point she sees someone in a red jacket standing around in the parking lot way at the other end of the shopping center, probably a good 100 yards+ away from her.

He’s not approaching her, waving at her, doing anything at all to acknowledge her presence, but she thinks he’s suspicious and it’s making her nervous.

Lady, you’re also standing around in a parking lot in the middle of the night. Pot, kettle.

Anyway, after a while one of our officers calls her up to tell her to chill with the 911 calls because they’re busy with other shit, and then drops this on us- she apparently mistook a stop sign for a person in a red jacket.

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We have a disturbance at a fast food restaurant. The usual, customer freaking out and trashing the place and yelling because they fucked up her order or something. Unfortunately, nothing too unusual there.

Except that in addition to the restaurant calling, the customer also called herself, basically to say “I’m trashing the place and causing a scene because they messed up my order.”

So… you’re basically calling to rat on yourself? Do you expect me to give you permission to carry on wrecking the place or something?

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Got a call one night, this lady is freaking out because there was an animal on her lawn. She was terrified of it, talked all the way around her house to go in the back door because she didn’t want to walk past it.

What kind of animal? She didn’t know. She was too freaked out to even give me a vague description. Was it big or small? What color was it? Did it have fur, feathers, or scales? She couldn’t tell me.

Officers go out, it was a bunny.

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Getting more into general stuff people frequently call about than specific stories.

We have a few major highways that run through our area. Once in a while for roadwork to clean debris off the highway, etc. they need to create a traffic break- basically get a couple work trucks or state police vehicles out on the highway in a line across all lanes with flashing lights and such to slow down traffic so someone up ahead can do whatever they need to do in the roadway without getting pancaked.

Again, these vehicles are clearly marked with highway maintenance or police logos, flashing lights, reflectors, the whole shebang.

And without fail, someone calls to complain about this.

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So many calls about deer, raccoons, snakes, foxes. Opossums, coyotes, and all of the other local wildlife just kind of…existing.

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Fireworks calls on new Year’s, 4th of July, etc. like not even just some jackass shooting off fireworks in their backyard, but the city or a country club or whatever putting on their own display with all of the permits and Safety regulations and all of that. People call and complain about the official municipal fireworks.

Not to mention the people who think they’re gunshots. Protip- gunshots don’t whistle and sizzle. I get calls about “gunshots” all the time where I can hear them in the background making very un-gunshot like noises.

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No, I don’t know when your power is gonna be back on after the bad storm we just had. The utility companies have already been notified, it’s on them. Do you think the cops can just arrest or shoot the downed wires to get your power back on?

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Confused old people who just want to know what time it is.

Friend was working dispatch in Portland Oregon. After a rare set of snow storms, someone called in the 9’ standing penis in their neighbors front yard (some people aren’t satisfied making snowmen).

Also not the target of the question but I recall a guy who called 911 because the fries he ordered at a mcdonalds were cold.

The police showed up and found that he had a warrant for his arrest for murder.

I would be genuinely shocked to find an US police officer here.

Somewhere in europe, someone called the cops because the prostitute he ordered online didn’t look like the picture. Prostitution was illegal tho so the cops had a talk with him instead.

Usual not the target person of the question.

In Australia there was a report done on the types of non emergency calls that operators of the 000 (Au equivalent of 911) get back in the late 1990s to early 2000s

Surprising amount of people wanting to know what time a show starts on the telly and when a particular train will arrive.