OT: Home alarms? Opinions needed.

Yesterday I talked with my next door neighbor. He told me that last week at about 1pm (I was at work) 2 guys in a gray Chevy PU drove up to my home and 1 guy got out and walked up to my front door. My neighbor knows that I am at work in the day. So my neighbor walked out of his garage and stood in his driveway, the guy that walked up to my door went back to his truck got in and left. (I hope they come back when I am home, I will have a present for them)

I went to Home depot today and bought a cheap high intensity door sensor, when the front door opens then a shreeking alarm sound comes out of this pocket size calculator, hopefully scaring off the dirtbag. I am hesitant to install a real alarm due to the fact that it will likely trigger many false alarms. Besides the crooks know that once the alarm sounds they have 2 minutes to steal all they can grab in one handful and leave before the cops get to your home. I told the wife to turn the radio on in the living room when she leaves for work. (it might help)
My home sits 1000 feet of the road and is blocked by many trees.
Anybody here have any advice for a guy that has never had a real alarm system.? Any opinions on how to better safe guard a home. I have all the windows locked and the door wall is jammed shut with a 2x2 post, the entry door on the garage is barracaded with a 4x4 locked into position and only a gorilla would be able to bust that door in.

This neighbor of mine has a gate that is operated by a button in your car/truck and has a 120vac line going to it, the gate is 200 feet from his house. He wants me to get a gate like his..........PITA for me, $1500 to make it, install it run the power line etc. Besides a guy has to get out and walk 200 feet to break in and is not much of a deterent, in my opinion.
Give me some more ideas on what to do here.

Just put some normal stuff you'd use while at home on a timer and have an extra vehicle (if feasible) licensed and operational. Have a radio, lights, shopvac, sprinkler, garage door opener, (be creative) kick on/off periodically and change vehicles frequently. Don't set any patterns.
Get a couple geese and/or guineas to alert the neighbors.

Dave

My home alarm is excellent, only big expense is food. I have two dogs, both mutts. One is a dalmation terrier mix, the other is a rotweiller shepard mix. No real false alarms, no need for anyone to ring the bell or knock on the door, no 2 minutes to get what someone wants. Dogs get first pick. I"ve always had dogs and always plan to. Great comapanions, good protection for the wife when I"m not home and good protection for the home when we"re both gone.

But......real alarms dont p**p in your yard and needlessly bark. I am not a dog lover. I have a cat, real sweetheart and quiet too.

Guineas are the best but can get irritating whenever every little thing sets them off along with peacocks and they can be dirty. I have a $3000 alarm system which is OK if the SO responds quickly. I would put up dynamic IP cameras to your computer so when there is an incident you can deal with it it your own way making sure you can get a liscense tag number and better ID. My oldest son has an IP system and got and a tag number off their car and had my youngest who is a cop and ran the tag so my oldest made a phone call and that issue disappeared.

(quoted from post at 15:56:01 05/01/10) I am not a dog lover. .

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Get you an Australian Sheperd..... That'll cure your illness.......... Or teach that worthless cat to bark :shock:

Hidden video cameras on a motion sensor.

In the 80's created an alarm myself for my mom 's house. Used B/W relay as basis. Alarm would sound if wire cut anywhere, power outage,glass breakage, open front or back door. Horn and Bell(very loud) batt backup. Covered entire first floor and basement. Guess what? Buggers used ladder and went in 2nd floor. Snow on ground. Tracks leading to a house 2 blocks away. Cops said "don't prove nothing." 3 months later they were on TV, part of a fence operation. Big City Blues.

Over reaction? You didn"t say the guy tried the door, or tried to get in. So he"s a dirtbag? Don"t you have strangers in the neighborhood that can be there for a good reason? Salesmen? Haven"t you ever stopped somewhere to ask for directions? Would you expect to be greeted with a "present"?

I used to like dogs. Since I've begun doing insurance inspections on real estate properties, I've come to dislike dogs intensely. They're the one single biggest PITA there is on this job.

However, if a dog prevents me from doing my job, all I have to do is take a photo of the dog and turn it in. The company will back me up on why I couldn't do the inspection. And the dog owner can forget about homeowner's insurance.

Insurance companies would rather take the chance of paying for a break-in than to have to pay for some obnoxious dog sinking his molars into an innocent person and the lawsuits that inevitably follow.

If you get a good alarm system you shouldnt have a problem with false alarms. Get door and window sensors and glass break sensors. There tend to be more false alarms with motion detectors. I have a loud horn inside the house and a very large and very loud siren in the gable vent. If the alarm goes off everybody around knows it. They may have time before the police get there but it will get the neighbors attention immediately. My system also uses cell service instead of home phone to call the alarm in. That way they cant disable the dialer by cutting the phone cable.
A bonus that you get with an alarm system is your smoke detectors can/will also be tied into the system.

If it were my house I"d post a couple of signs "STOP, DOORS TO THIS HOUSE ARE ARMED WITH PEPPER SPRAY"

Then I"d design a system to actually set off a pepper spray if the door were forced.

Have a good loud siren or other such so that your neighbors can stroll over and see who is writhing around on the ground with a face full of spray.

Bob

Seems like you're getting a bit worked up over a couple of Jehovah's Witnesses.

that sounds like one great police department if they can reach your door in 2 minutes,...you live in a donut shop ????

I have friend that lives 2 miles from me and his home was broke into 3 times in 2 years. Fishing equipment, guns, stuff was stolen. I guess the most irritating thing for my friend is when the cops showed up they have an "oh well, we will take down all the info" attitude.

In my area it is well known that a 2 man crew goes around and does the following type of break in:

2 guys pull up to a home way off the road, then one guy gets out, walks up to the house and knocks on a window and then waits a minute to see if anyone looks out the window then if no one is home, they break in, rip off some stuff then leave. This happens in the middle of a week day between 10-2pm.

I dont want to be a victim. And no one comes up my driveway to my home. I have been here 10 years and have only had 6 or 7 solicitors come to the door in that time.......No joke. 2 jevohah witnesses, 1 guy selling coupons for restaurants, 1 kid selling books, 1 guy selling a lawn cutting service. Dont remember the other 2 or 3.

The only legitimate people that are supposed to come to my home are Propane delivery trucks 1-2 times per year, UPS driver which is rare and maybe a mail carrier which is also very rare.
Electric meter reader guy too.

Ahhh......I should have said 5 minutes. I live 4 miles from the substation for the cop shop and I see alot of cops driving on a main road near me.

Have two dogs when a car door sounds in drive both go off like an eight day alarm or any voice out side of the house the same. Ring the door bell even better. Both about 100 pounders. Best yet no parking 24/7 on the street. They are up set even with walkers on side walk.

HOW TO INSTALL A LOW DOLLAR HOME SECURITY SYSTEM
1. Go to a secondhand store and buy a pair of men"s used size 14-16
work boots.

2. Place them on your front porch, along with a copy of Guns &Ammo magazine and your NRA magazines.

3. Put a few giant-sized dog dishes next to the boots and magazine.

4. Leave a note on your door that reads:

"Hey Bubba, Big Jim, Duke and Slim, I went for more ammunition. Back in about an hour. Don"t mess with the pit bulls -- they attacked the mailman this morning and messed him up real bad. I don"t think Killer took part in it but it was hard to tell from all the blood. Anyways, I locked all four of "em in the house. Better wait in your truck till I get back.

I have one of those electronic dogs at my farm building,if anyone gets close it starts barking.It sounds like a real mad dog and i don't have to feed it.

Your neighbor is your best defense, keep him happy.

Alarms aren't insurance, but there's no reason you shouldn't have a false-free alarm. I owned an installing company for several years, no false alarm problem with properly designed systems. Doesn't mean user error never occured, that's unfortunately common. $300 will buy you an excellent system, $200 will get you most of the hardware you might want. Ebay's a good place to shop. I bought my mother's latest panel there after hers gave out, 20 yrs after I originally installed it.

Making a lot of noise is the most important thing. Not so much to alert your neighbor, but to make the thief nervous. Pay attention to the MO, it's always cautious. When you make your place a lot more trouble than nearby alternatives, you've won.

I live on a mountaintop with a single road up which solves most problems here, but there's also a driveway sensor (no false trips) and a full burglar alarm on the first building (a distance from my house), my well-equipped shop. Alarms are cheap assurance.

MO around here is to drop off the thief to break in and organize the goods (guns, electronics) so that the driver can return for a very quick pickup. Close proximity to the public road is a high risk, making an alarm system well worth the money. Distant neighbors on both sides have had that experience in the past year. I've got a gate at the public road, too long a hike for common thieves.

Yell if you need help determining the system. DIY is simple if you know anything about electricity. There are a few potential problems with hardware that you can easily avoid, particularly with "motion detectors". My shop even got shock sensors on all the walls, to detect any attempt going through them.

My problem was ex-employees coming back, in the middle of the night (gate is usually left open). When I put out the word about what I'd installed, the problem went away. Easier pickings elsewhere.

You are most fortunate with response time, here it's 35 minutes, making central station monitoring almost worthless.

Best security measures are commen sense action---
Make it appear you are home. Lights and radio on, or on timers.
Install security lights.
Never leave anything of value outside that is easy to pickup.
Install WARNING signs. I have a professionaly made sign that reads--
PROPERTY PROTECTED BY OWNER--LAW WILL BE NOTIFIED LATER.
Keep vegitation cut back close to windows and doors.
Install Security System---I have a Visonic Powermax that cost less then $200.00. Easy to install and gives "piece of mind" when armed when I am home or not. One breakin would cost much more then the system.
Just realize that an alarm system is not theft proofing the property and a determined thief will find a way.
Just make your home as "undesireable" as possable.

Why not put up a gate? You can install the power etc. to the gate later, but for now it's not that difficult to get out and open it and close it when coming and going.
A dog can be one of the best deterents too. I understand you not likeing the p**p, but if it kept someone from stealing you guns then it's pretty cheap insurance. I have cats too, but they are around to keep the rodents out of the barn.
Our security system consists of a fully fenced yard with gate that is kept closed most of the time (always closed when not home and at night) and a couple of dogs. So far so good.
My neighbor is an idiot, so I don't rely on him.

I used to live very very close to a HWY, and salesmen were always at my door. We had a picket fence, and I put up three very bright signs--BEWARE OF DOG--. If you have a visible dog they know whats up, but if they think once the gate comes open and the dog wakes up, all heck can break loose.

For around $115.00 you can buy a trail cam, that will take four hundred pictures.

The assumption is everyone is a bad guy trying to steal something etc. I live in a very small comunity that not a person would conclude troubles by what you described. We are shelterd from the rest of the real world.

If you are known as the gun guru around town, then you know what the thieves first target is going to be. Too bad you neighbor didn't get a tag number.

Sometimes harder to prevent a break in but you can help catch them later. Webcams in the right places can be watched and recorded 24/7. Can watch from work or on cell phone. Can be set to run 24/7 or motion cam. Can set to send email pics at interval. I have a couple and another ordered. Need a high speed line with necessary bandwidth. Got one looking out the kitchen window. I'm looking for another wireless access point so I can view the whole house from the barn.

Have a friend who riged a nice little cheap scare system. he got a motion sensing light, disassembled it and hid the sensor outside of the house. it is set so anyone getting near the front of the house will set it off. He then rigged the the outlet part so he can plug it into various lamps around the house. He rotates the lamps that are pluged into it. this way, when it is set off a different light, in a different part of the house comes on as opposed to the last time it went off. makes the house look more occupied. could also be pluged into a tv, radio, or other appliance. Good luck