The Glade 4.0

Came home this evening to a kicked in back door. Guess I'm not as out-in-the-county as I'd have liked to think I was. So far I've discovered two iPads, an LCD, my daughter's Casio keyboard, and a 1080p camcorder stolen. Oh, and aside from kicking in the door, my office desk is pretty well trashed. It looks like they had tried to just pull it away from the wall to get to the outlet to unplug it (the UPS was unplugged), and got frustrated and gave up when the computer was hooked to the UPS and the UPS was wound all up in the desk, etc. It's a good thing they didn't realize it would have taken about a second to unplug the one cord plugged into the back of the iMac rather than follow power cords under the desk to the wall.

Oh, and the contents of the medicine cabinet were all over the bathroom, lest I have any doubts about the general disposition of my thief/thieves.

There's no alarm system in my house; never dreamt I'd need it here. So, time to shop! Not sure even after this that I'm particularly interested in a monitored service, but I'm not set against it either. I'm interested primarily in:

a) entry sensors for doors and windows
b) something that makes a really, really REALLY loud noise when it goes off
c) something that will text or email me if it's triggered
d) motion-sensitive camera, wired or wireless. I'm inclined to say something fairly decent because I'm not especially impressed with the acuity of a VGA image paired with the quality of the camera on a lot of things I've seen so far (installed at work and at friends' houses)

Anyway my principal concern is a deterrent when I'm not home, and something that notifies me when things are amiss. I'd love to just get a good dog, but I'm not home enough to be a good dog owner - being gone typically twelve hours a day wouldn't be good for a pet. My gun doesn't do me any good while I'm not home to use it, and I might be putting it on a police report too if it wasn't locked up.

Anyone have any experience or opinions about home security systems?

Sorry to hear about the robbery.

The only experience I have is when Oonagh and I "won" a home security system somehow through our local Lowes Home Improvement store.

We got the hardware for free: Central monitor unit, Front and back door detectors, a motion sensor and a system linked Smoke alarm.

What I learned from this that the sky seems to be the limit. You can get a security company to come in, listen to your requests and configure a system to do exactly what you want. Just about anything and everything can be monitored and alarmed if you so choose.

Don't know what kind of costs would be attached to all that hardware and 24x7 monitoring. I think we paid $30 a month for the monitoring of the system we won. We cancelled after the three year term as our budget tightened.

Good luck. Hope you can find some peace despite the intrusion and I hope you find what you are looking for in a security system.

EDIT - To specifically address your points.
a) entry sensors for doors and windows - Fairly standard (As ours was in the system we were given)
b) something that makes a really, really REALLY loud noise when it goes off - Yup, ours was loud as holy hell. Beeped when the door was opened for 15 or so seconds waiting for the code to be entered. If not...OMG, LOUD!
c) something that will text or email me if it's triggered - I would guess this would be standard from any current monitoring services.
d) motion-sensitive camera, wired or wireless - Can't speak from any experience here.

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This must be Thursday. I could never get the hang of Thursdays.

Jeryn, I've got a friend who owns his own home/business security business and I've sent him your details on what you are looking for. Pretty sure they don't work that far away from home so asked if he could recommend a business up your way. I'll let you know what he says.

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"It is true that democracy undermines freedom when voters believe they can live off of others' productivity, when they modify the commandment: 'Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote.' The politics of plunder is no doubt destructive of both morality and the division of labor."

I am sorry to hear about your robbery, Jeryn. Hopefully the things can be easily replaced and covered by insurance.

I definitely endorse your alarm system decision. Some folks think a dog is enough. "My dog is big and mean!" Yeah? That's nice. But a dog won't deter a thief who knows one simple fact: dog's don't do ****.

I used to watch a show called "To Catch a Thief" and it was about two retired professional thieves who would get consent to break into a person's house and simulate a robbery, and afterward give them free alarm, safe, and security upgrades. On multiple occasions there were people who were confident that their big dogs would stop him. One of two things always happened:

1. The dogs would bark angrily and give off the vibe of "If you come any closer, you're dead!" vibe. But the second he made it INSIDE the house, the dogs stopped. It's like their mindset changed to "Oh, you're inside now? Then you must belong here. Do you have any food?" And he would indeed feed them stuff from their own fridge, and you'd see the dogs happily following him around.

2. The dogs continued to be angry even after he got inside. But he just used his human ingenuity over unevolved canine barkiness. He'd corral the dogs into a room, like a bathroom, and then just continue on from there. One time he took a door off its hinges and used that to corral them.

An alarm system also won't deter the most determined thieves, but it will certainly make the house less appealing. Neighbors are used to dogs barking, but they aren't used to hearing alarm systems. And, I admit, even a dog will help lower the appeal of a house to break into. I just think an alarm system is the better deterrent if you're going to be a betting man.

In any case, I wish you luck. It's never fun to come to a scene and see your personal space violated. I've had my car broken into a couple times, So I can at least sympathize on a much smaller scale.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!