Home Alarm Question

[bcDeL]

[Blue]

I just installed one at my uncles place, he got broken into a few weeks ago. I ordered a kit online from some place called homesecuritystore.com or something like that. It was pretty easy to put in, and so far it works great. They've got wireless ones too that'd be even easier to install. He didnt want the monitoring service, but I could set it up to call him on his cell phone when the alarm goes off if he wanted it. I'm tempted to put one in at my house now. The brand that I ordered for him was DSC.

[norcal01]

Since there seem to be quite a few people on here who want nothing to do with LEO's, I thought I'd throw this out there. If you have a monitored alarm system and it goes off (or an unmonitored one that goes off and the neighbors call the police), the officer(s) are going to walk around your house, looking in all your windows, checking your doors, etc... I've been to more than one alarm call where the homeowner was less than happy to find me in their back yard checking on things.
Another thing, if you have a panic or robbery button on the panel and it gets pushed, there's a good chance the officers showing up are going to walk through your house to make sure everything is fine. They aren't going to take your word for it at the front door. I know this because, #1 I've been the responding officer, and #2 it happened to me, BY MY OWN DEPARTMENT! I told the Sgt, who knew me since the PD has about 30 officers, that my kids were sleeping and I didn't want people stomping around through my house. He still came in, although he left the other officer who responded outside. I have seen people get arrested and go to jail because of items which were seen when officers responded to an alarm at their house. And those entries have been upheld, at least in the local superior court, on the basis that an activated panic alarm constitutes sufficient exigent circumstances to justify entry without a warrant.
The point is, if you're one of the people out there who feels like the police walking around and/or through their house is violating in some way, you might want to consider a silent alarm which notifies your cell phone. Monitored alarms also have a funny habit of going off for no reason which, at least in my city, can result in fees being charged by the city for the police response. I'm not sure if those fees go to the homeowner or to the alarm company but it's something to check on before having your system monitored.
All that being said, from what I've seen, alarms are an excellent deterrent. I can't recall ever taking a burglary report at a home where an alarm system was installed and monitored. Someone who kicks a door or window in and continues to try to get into the house after the alarm starts going off is probably a very dangerous person. I like mine because in my opinion, should I be involved in a home-invasion/self-defense scenario, it's only going to look that much better for me that my alarm was blaring and the suspect continued into my house. Just my two cents.

[bcDeL]

Thanks guys. I will have to check if the sheriff's dept charges for false alarm calls. If not, it seems as if monitored is the way to go.

[SID45]

Hi, I have an alarm and its really mentally securing us knowing that when we go travel , no one is walking around inside the house. Its like having a safe, the peace you feel is different, other than having a firearm in the house. There is motion and glass break alarm also. I have had one false alarm, when one of my friends came into my house using the garage, which he knew the pass word. I got a warning. The sheriff came over at night about 30 mins after the alarm was activated. Slow response time, we could have been dead. Even with the alarm i am still on guard in case anyone breaks in. The blaring noise will surely discourage a burglar becoz they know cops are coming.

[norcal01]

Oh yeah, I should have mentioned the response time earlier. An alarm call is not very high priority unless it's a panic alarm so it can be a while until the police show up. One more thing I remembered, if you do have it monitored, try to find out how the alarm company labels the various sensors and ask that they do it in a way that makes sense. In other words, if the sensor for your back door activates the alarm, you want the monitoring company to tell the police dispatcher that the alarm covers the back door, not zone 45A7. Or if your bedroom is in the northwest corner of your house, have the window sensors labeled as northwest bedroom, not master bedroom. This kind of thing help a lot when you're the officer responding.

[DVSmith]

A friend of mine runs an alarm monitoring company. He tells me that most alarm owners never or rarely set their alarms.

Most installed them because of some event(s) that caused them concern, they use them for a while and decide it is too much trouble.

Not saying this is a reason to not have one, just thought I would share.

Also, and I am not an expert on this, I have heard that a change in how telephone service is being delivered to home, maybe a change from analog to digital, is causing a shift in monitoring capabilities and equipment requirements. You may want to ask about that. It may be BS, but worth checking out.

[Kodemonkey]

One of the conditions that I had to first owning a firearm was to have a security system in place. It's an additional layer of the whole security package.

I believe it allows me to determine more accurately the severity of a threat. Meaning, a simple property thief is probably going to run at the sound of the alarm. If they continue to come up the stairs, I have an invisible line drawn in my house where I have told myself; "if they keep coming, it's time to use deadly force". I also believe that after the event, the existence of an alarm that is sounding during a break in helps me legally. My hope that it may prevent it turning into a jury trial altogether, but if it goes there I am pretty sure a jury would side with me. I mean, alarm goes off, guy doesn't stop, he starts going up stairs toward the family. I hope most people would believe that his intentions were to do harm.

An alarm also gives me precious seconds to determine there is someone breaking into the house. I don't have to determine if "that noise I heard" was someone attempting to get in or not. I have a definite indicator (keypad) next to the bed, and it helps shake off the "fog" at 2 a.m.

Discuss how you plan to react with the people you live with. Go through a drill. When my wife was pregnant, the alarm went off at 3 a.m. I got out of bed, slammed the door to our room and the wife got the gun out of the safe and handed it to me. She grabbed the phone and it rang as she picked it up. The alarm company called to see if we were alright and told us it was the fire alarm. Turns out a battery died in one of the smoke detectors and it falsed positive (why do those things only die in the middle of the night?!?). Anyway my wife did not even realize she entered the code on the safe, retrieved the gun, and handed it to me. She thought I did all of that myself. It goes to show you that going through even a mental run through once in a while it can help you react better in a panic. Our drill has now been modified with the arrival of two children, but we setup how we will put ourselves between the threat and our kids.

Another reason to have an alarm is to make sure that when you come home to an empty house, it is an empty house. Our system indicates if the alarm was triggered while we were out (assuming that somehow we missed the calls on our cell phone from the alarm company). If it was, we leave immediately and call the cops and have them clear it.

Lastly, I feel an alarm system is protection against getting shot accidentally by the wife. She arms the house at night, and if I come home late she knows it is me because I disarm it and the re-arm it.

But it will only serve you if you use it. Once you get in the habit of using it, you will probably sleep better at night. No more waking up in the middle of the night when you hear the house settling or if one of the kids is out of bed.

By the way, I have an infrared sensor positioned in the kids room that trips a nightlight in our bedroom at night. It goes "click" and we don't get surprised when they come running in the room. All x-10 stuff, maybe $50 total for that system. It is separate from the alarm. Another way to help determine more accurately what is a threat and what is not.

[retired]

I've had an alarm for almost 20yrs. between our prior and present homes.

Our system is monitored and that is the only way I'd have it. Our company is a small one out of OC, I've lived in Riverside County the whole time. They are excellent and I've never had a problem with them.

One thing to know about the big companies like ADT and Brinks is their systems are proprietary, so you have to go with them for the monitoring. Since you do, they can charge what they want and IIRC, it is about $50/month. The system I have can be monitored by any company and by paying for a year in advance, I pay $13/month. They offer the same as the big companies as far as sensors, wireless, etc.

As far as charges go for false alarms; generally speaking, the lea will charge after the 3rd one within a year. That is what Riverside PD did when I lived there. As was said, you can check with your local dept. to ascertain the policy.

I would also recommend a panel by your front entry, garage entry and master bedroom.

A lot of people who live in two story homes don't have the windows upstairs alarmed due to the extra cost and belief a burglar won't enter that way. If I had a 2 story, I would pay the extra. A tree near an upper window or access to a ladder on the premises may allow that burglar entry inside upstairs. They know most people don't alarm the upper entry points. I have taken 459 reports where entry was via the upper floor.

Just my 2 cents.

[Kodemonkey]

A lot of people who live in two story homes don't have the windows upstairs alarmed due to the extra cost and belief a burglar won't enter that way. If I had a 2 story, I would pay the extra. A tree near an upper window or access to a ladder on the premises may allow that burglar entry inside upstairs. They know most people don't alarm the upper entry points. I have taken 459 reports where entry was via the upper floor.

Just my 2 cents.

+1 I have both the kids rooms upstairs windows alarmed and put a motion in the master. I have talked to LEOs that told me people would ladder into the master because they knew that was where the jewelry was, and not enter any other part of the house.

Also, if you can have the keypad visible when you open the front door it lets would be casers (posed as salespeople) to know that you do indeed have an alarm. We had a rash of home burglaries in my area and when they were caught they said that they never went to places that had alarm systems. They went after the easier score.

[DmD]

I have had an ADT alarm now for almost 3 years now. I love it. When I go on trips I know that nobody is in my house. I went on a 3 week vacation before the alarm install and I hated it. The whole time I was thinking is my house being broken into.

I use the alarm everyday. When we leave the house it is armed and when we go to bed it is armed. I pay $35/month for monitoring.

[Unit74]

I set mine religiously..... Chances are when that thing goes off whomever is making it go off will either run away or grabs something quick and then runs away.


Regardless, I don't think they are going to stick around for long. And if it's when I'm home they better hope they can run at 1042 fps or greater.

[khw9mm]

ADT, Brinks and Protection One are some of the better ones out there. Protection One being the best out of the three - just don't know if they service the Bay area...I'm sure they do.

Def get an alarm system that's well monitored. Gives you tremedous peace of mind....

[odysseus]

Thanks guys. I will have to check if the sheriff's dept charges for false alarm calls. If not, it seems as if monitored is the way to go.

Are you in an unincorporated area? It would probably not be the sheriff but the city you are in otherwise. Some may require a one time registration fee, and give you an amount of false alarms per year allowed before a fine will be accessed. Monitored systems are pretty much the only way to go to get the true value of a home alarm system.

Keep in mind also people don't always remember fire alarming as also essential. I have heat and smoke sensors also around in areas as needed. I can count that essentially my house will auto call the fire department when I am away if there is a fire. That's a great added benefit to adding a couple fire sensors.

[1911Vince]

Check on how your system sends out the alarm. I was at work and my wife at home, we were talking on the phone when our nephew set the alarm off on accident. The phone immediately disconnected and we were unable to connect for at least 4 minutes due to the system contacting the monitoring service. The main problem I have with that is if someone where breaking into the home...it takes time for the system to contact monitoring then they call us and then they call the police and unfortunately that could be over 5 minutes time. People have mentioned have a back up cell phone to call 911, don't think it will give the address like a land line will.

So we plan to have a second phone line added and dedicate that to the alarm. If alarm goes off...grab gun..kids and head to closet where we have phone available.

Vince