First line of defense

[oldman45]

Many threads have been written about home defense, home invasion, nightstand gun type and gun location.

I just wonder how many have considered a nice home alarm.

After three homes and four business alrams, I carefully thought out what a good alarm for my current home would be. Then I had a discussion with the owner of a local alarm company. While some may consider it to be pricey, I consider it to be very reasonable.

I had every one of the 19 widows and five exterior doors pinned. Motion detectors were placed throughout the home so one could not be inside without being seen by a motion detector. Control panels were placed by the front door, the garage entry door and over my bed. I can track the movements of anyone inside the house by watching the control panel. Entry from any location sets off the alarm, which is monitored locally and both the alarm company and I am notified of any intrusion. Once I am in for the night, the alarm is set and a person inside can walk freely through the house but I can still track the movements by a series of lights on the panel.

Yet the main thing is any entry gets an immediate alarm, unlike the setting when I would normally walk in a door from being away that allows a 15 second delay before sounding. When the alarm goes off, I do not feel an intruder would hang around.

All this cost me $1,700 initially and a $120 a year monitoring fee.

This is well better than a $5,000 atty fee for a shooting or insurance claim for burglary.

Maybe not totally ideal but the best I could come up with.

My idea is to prevent the use of the second line of defense.

 

[VictimNoMore]

Our bad guy ignored our alarm, once it went off. He knew he was then "on the clock", and grabbed the most expensive things he could find in about one minute's time.

If someone wants in your house, they will get in, get what they can, and be off before the monitoring company calls the local police department.

The only thing I see missing from your security system is cameras. Without them, you will never know who broke into your home. They are critical for actually catching the bad guys.

Our bad guy is in jail because he never saw the front door camera.

 

[bennettfam]

Pokey barks pretty well at strangers. Course, if I'm not home to back her up with the .357 she chickens out pretty fast being the little ankle-biter mutt she is. Luckily I live in a low-crime neighborhood of a small town and have not felt the need for an alarm. Hope my luck holds out.

 

[cshoff]

My old neighbors had a high dollar alarm system, complete with cameras at each entrance. When burglars hit their home, they destroyed the cameras first. They made off with a couple thousand dollars worth of stuff and literally walked it almost a half mile to a car that was waiting on the other side of the locked gate at the county road. By the time the police showed up to the remote rural home, the crooks were long gone.

Having an alarm installed on your home should certainly make it less appealing than your neighbors home that does not have an alarm, at least to a common crook, but, as was mentioned above, if a criminal wants into your home bad enough, no alarm system or deadbolt lock is going to stop him. And in remote areas where police response time is measured in 1/2 hour increments rather than minutes, their effectiveness won't be as pronounced. That said, I would MUCH rather be woke up by an alarm that sensed an unauthorized entry than to wake up with a criminal already on top of me.

Home security, IMO, should be composed of layers of protection. An alarm is one layer, security lighting on the outside is one layer, security doors and heavy duty locks are one layer, a loud territorial dog is one layer, and your home defense gun(s) are one layer. In addition, there are a number of other sensible precautions you can take that might be unique to your specific situation. It's something that should certainly be given careful consideration.

 

[APS]

I have thought of this. But I believe that it will require me to pay ~$50/month for a phone line right? I currently just use a cellular phone. Or are they cellular now, in which case I may need to pay per month for that?

 

[oldman45]

I have thought of this. But I believe that it will require me to pay ~$50/month for a phone line right? I currently just use a cellular phone. Or are they cellular now, in which case I may need to pay per month for that?

My alarm is set up some way without the use of a hardwire phone. I do not understand how it works unless it used cellular technology. The company says that hardwire phones are too easy to disconnect from outside the home.

The area I am in is a small bedroom community outside a large metropolitian city. We have 11 full time officers and a very good response. I was handling a situation several weeks ago and called for two officers to respond. They were in front of my house in four minutes. While their department is pretty much a starter job at low pay, they do offer fast response.

 

[Kanewpadle]

Alarms are nice but should not be relied upon too heavily. As Cshoff said, home security should be layered.

I have watched video of commercial and residential breakin's and I can say that I will never totally trust one. So much so that I don't have one.

I've seen them fail in one way or another and lose power during a power outage.

It did not matter if the alarm was instant or delayed. The thieves took what they wanted and left. Some of the burglaries were well planned taking little time to carry out.

A local car stereo company was burgled three times and the alarm did not work properly. The alarm company said "oh well". It was a mom and pop business and the burglaries set them back quite a bit.

Each situation is different. The layout of your house and your home protection plan should be considered.

If you have a super hero alarm with a $5 deadbolt on your front door, how long will it take the bad guy to make it at least half way into your home before you respond to your alarm?

And when your alarm is screaching, you lose the ability the hear what's going on in your home.

In my experience alarms don't work 100% of the time. For that kind of money, I would expect it too.

People are spending billions each year on a false sense of security.

 

[GKC]

I have an alarm system, and it uses a cellular unit, since I don't have a land line. I got rid of my land line a couple of years ago, so I thought I was going to have to lose my alarm system. When I called the alarm company to cancel they asked me why, and when I told them I no longer had a land line, they came out and installed this unit at no charge. It runs off the a/c power that the system uses, and has a battery back-up...when the system is tripped, it places a call to the company just like it would do over a land line. It's just a small, square box that attaches to the main alarm panel in the closet, and has a short antenna. If you didn't know what it was, you'd never think "cell phone."

I have an alarm system to hopefully scare away the smash and grab types, or limit the amount of time they will spend in the house. I don't count on it to keep them out completely...although I do have signs at each entry door, and stickers on each window. So far, we've never had a home burglary...although when we lived in Florida, thieves took my tires and wheels off my truck, and left it sitting on cinder blocks in my drive-way! Imagine going out to your vehicle to leave for work, and seeing that! It got me motivated to get my garage cleaned out so that I could park in it too (my wife has always had an "inside" space.)

 

[LoadedRound]

"Layers" is the key. Don't rely on any one security measure.
Good neighborhood and good neighbors if possible. Signs from the alarm company. Sturdy doors and locks (actually use these) Dog. Alarm (actually use this). Lighting. Tactics. Phone. Gun.

Then plan for all of this to fail.

 

[JcMack]

I need a cheap alarm thats sounds off to alert me to an A.C. power failure. Not a light unless it's cheap. I just want an audible to wake me up when the powers out (which happens a lot around here in the coldest months). I'm tired of waking up at 0200 freezing my butt off. I'd rather have some early warning. To stay on topic, everybody's sit is different. I light the place up at night, have 2 Chihuahua burglar alarms, and hope I aim straight should I need to..

 

[feralmerril]

My grandpa was a very corney guy that repeated his jokes. One was about this guy that had two dogs. A big mean vicious dog, and a little fife dog to wake up the big dog.

 

[9c1 lover]

hardware stores and even walmart have anice and ever increasing suplly of alarm type pieces of equipment. like the sensors on the windows and remote ones for the doors and motion sensors, that way you wake up from an alarm and not the badguy, and also you dont have to pay big bucks for install and monitoring, only make sure the batteries are good, might be a good option too for some people. i was pretty impressed when i came acroos this stuff at home depot a few weeks back, i was strollin by and it caught my attention for like ten mins. i always thought the big dollar systems were so fake and a false sense of security. i dont use the stuff to scare the b.g. away, thats what the guns are for, i just want to hear them coming.

 

[9c1 lover]

I need a cheap alarm thats sounds off to alert me to an A.C. power failure.

.....Amazon.com: Reliance Controls THP207 Plug-In Power Failure Alarm with LED Flashlight: Home Improvement: Reviews, Prices & more and there is lots more out there, you could probably get one from the hardware store too.

 

[JcMack]

.....Amazon.com: Reliance Controls THP207 Plug-In Power Failure Alarm with LED Flashlight: Home Improvement: Reviews, Prices & more and there is lots more out there, you could probably get one from the hardware store too.

Thanks, just what I was after.

 

[Hook686]

I tend to agree with the idea of an alarm for when I'm home to alert me, and security cameras to capture pictures for when I'm not. Any intruder can destroy the cameras, but the images will remain on the web site for later review. Best alarm I can think of is my dog.He goes where I go, or I don't go.

 

[Harrison]

Our home alarm is our family doberman. She is a sweet loving dog, but not shy about barking when anyone comes into the yard or onto the porch. Also she looks like she means business. Also we live in a low crime, semi-rural area where the neighbors watch out for each other.