Correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't you be checking $loads[0] rather than $loads[1]? Nothing else immediately stands out as being wrong :-)

HTH,

Tim

Update: Okay, there are a few other problems. Most of them have been discussed below, so I won't reiterate (or is that preiterate?). Note however that you set $config{alert} but actually check $config{notify}. (Insert usual spiel about use strict here :-P)

I also rewrote the /proc/loadavg access thusly:

open (LOADAVG,"/proc/loadavg");
while (<LOADAVG>) {
    @loads = split(/ /);
}
[download]

Do all that and it seems to work, on a one check per run basis.