Canberra is a well-educated city – what with all our scientists at CSIRO and esteemed academics at ANU – and yet there are still people who ring triple zero to report that their food delivery app isn’t working.

This might seem like an isolated incident, seeing as Canberra has more than 36,000 bright students in tertiary education (higher than the national average), but ACT Policing has a growing collection of #triplehellno calls that have become a Facebook hit.

ACT Policing receives on average 80 triple zero calls a day, time-critical situations that are taken seriously, as they should be. But every now and then they receive a misguided call, such as a poor soul getting swooped by birds. True story.

Thankfully, our local police have a fantastic sense of humour and they are creating hilarious Facebook posts out of people’s lack of knowledge over what constitutes an emergency. They should consider going in the Canberra Comedy Festival, their puns are brilliantly witty.

When a triple zero caller reported that their child was throwing a tantrum over head-lice treatment, ACT Policing posted “We’re really scratching our heads over this one” followed by the hashtag “NotOurInfestigation”. This masterstroke earned them 1,300 likes.

When another triple zero caller reported swooping birds, they responded on Facebook “It’s magpie season, we can’t save you, nobody can”. Two thousand likes for comedy gold.

Officer in charge of ACT Policing operations, Detective Inspector Elizabeth Swain, said she wasn’t surprised by the misconceptions of what an emergency is, “but the calls that make it into our ‘triple hell no’ register are certainly interesting”.

That’s a polite way of putting it.

“We try to weave this into all our proactive social media posts – to educate and inform, and try to have a bit of fun while doing so,” Detective Inspector Swain said. “Primarily, the goal of the triple hell no posts is to educate the public on what not to call triple zero about – and to have a bit of fun in the process.”

Perhaps the best #triplehellno by far was the hapless caller who rang from their hotel room to complain that their room wasn’t made up and the towels and refreshments weren’t replaced. A travesty of justice.

With perfect comedic timing, ACT Policing posted on Facebook: “We’re not a hotel, motel, Holiday Inn #TimeToCheckOut.” Boom tish.

“Very few of these calls have malicious intent,” Detective Inspector Swain said. “They’re largely due to a lack of understanding of what triple zero does, but it is crucial that emergency phones lines are not tied up responding to non-emergency matters. Every minute a call taker is responding to a non-emergency matter is time they could be responding to a matter that could be time critical.”

So, if your landlord has raised your rent (true story), or if you can’t find a babysitter (true story), or if you drop your phone in the sewage (poo story), then don’t call triple zero.  

“It’s important people know what numbers to call and when – only contact triple zero in life-threatening or time-critical situations,” Detective Inspector Swain said. “If you require police assistance, call 131 444, if you have information to report call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.”

ACT Policing receives about 400 calls to 131 444 for non-urgent matters.

ACT Policing is on Facebook. They’ll be here all week.