NGKUR: Home Security

[joy]

We have SimpliSafe. I love it!

Install yourself. They have all sorts of fancy gadgets (like motion sensors and breaking glass sensors), but I opted for door and window sensors. It wireless. The only thing plugged in is the tower (maybe a foot tall) and you need to dismantle the tower to forcably turn off the alarm. Ripping the keypad off the wall does exactly nothing to the alarm going off. So, the keypad is by the door but the tower is elsewhere in the house.

Optional 24-7 monitoring with monthly fee. I opted out for three reasons: 1. It needs to be cleared with the police department in Philly and I wasn't feeling that, 2. I'm basically convinced I will set it off accidentally and then all these cops will be whizzing to my house because I'm dumb and 3. I really just wanted a very loud alarm to go off in the event that someone broke in. Either to alert me or to scare them off.

[Deleted]

I live in a pretty good area. Until recently we never locked our doors (I know that sounds bad). A few months ago though, a string of break ins happened to the cars on the street I live on. Every single car on our street had been broken into, and a handful of houses. It was completely out of no where. It was the 1 night I didn't lock my car, and our GPS ended up getting stolen. I guess it's good I forgot to lock the car, because there was no damage to our car like the others. But after this happened, we go crazy with locking everything. We rent as well so our hands are pretty tied about adding anything else. Luckily we live next to a building that has cameras, so we park our car closer to the cameras.

We are looking into getting one of those systems that beep every time you open a door. We have a dog, so if he hears the beep he will go crazy, and I'm sure no one will come in our house.

I hope you can figure something out! Nothing worse then stressing over security like that!

[pismoduo]

One thing I know we've always done and has always been recommended to me is that if your windows are sliders or you have a sliding glass door to put some sort of rod or pole in the track. Recently one of the homes in our neighborhood had an attempted break-in. The would-be thieves were able to break the lock on their sliding glass door but couldn't actually open it because the owner had a board in the tracks that kept the door from sliding.

It won't stop them from just smashing the door and entering, but if their goal is to be stealthy and get out without notice, it's usually enough of a deterrent to send them on their way.

I've also heard recommendations to have a radio playing or a TV on when you're gone, to make it seem like someone is home. There's a few different products out there you can buy that turn lights, TVs, etc on at different intervals (I think you can even make it random) so that it looks more like someone is home.

Alarms and cameras only work if the thieves know you have them. I once heard a police officer joke that the best home security option is one of those little "protected by (security company x)" signs. Even if you don't actually have protection from them.

[cheshie6]

I use ADT~ no wires so I would think it would be easy to uninstall! Just be aware that most security systems that are hooked up like this, they call your home, then they call your cell and then they call the next person on you list before the call the police. If there is enough false alarms, you may get charged for each police call to your house! I use them because I'm home alone 6 months out of the year and I'm not a light sleeper! We had them in WA (home owners used them and required we maintained the subscription) and transferred our account to here in NH.

ETA: words are hard sometimes

[joy]

Apr 2, 2015 13:26:29 GMT -5 pismoduo said:

I've also heard recommendations to have a radio playing or a TV on when you're gone, to make it seem like someone is home. There's a few different products out there you can buy that turn lights, TVs, etc on at different intervals (I think you can even make it random) so that it looks more like someone is home.

Ah, yes.  We also have lights on timers.  I come home to lit house.

A light on your front door is also recommended.

[requiressnacks]

We have an alarm system that we rarely use because the dog sets off the sensors - so I'm not sure if I'd recommend getting one.

BUT - When I was a renter, I did have my apartment broken into once so I would definitely recommend that you have renters insurance. It was a godsend when tons of my stuff got stolen.

[goldenlove3]

Ditto joy's recommendation of SimpliSafe. We have door and window sensors and we're going to buy glass break sensors as well. We liked that there was no long term contract required. We do have the monitoring too.

[Lollipop]

We live in a relatively safe area, in a main floor apartment. We keep all of the windows locked, unless they're open to catch a breeze (very rare, we just use fans), and the patio door is always locked, with a piece of wood to stop it from opening. We keep the front door locked at all times, and the building has locks.

We don't have a security system at all. We've never felt the need for one.

ETA: we SHOULD have renter's insurance, especially after our last place flooded, but we keep procrastinating.

[kcones88]

Back when my husband was single, he bought one of the signs you put outside your house when you have an alarm system. He bought it on eBay and it's still there today, despite the fact that we have no alarm system. It's definitely illegal, but we haven't had any complaints yet.

We also have a dog that barks at any shadow that passes our house, and a gun for when we're home.

Maybe we just have a different view on "home security" than others.

[mainewifey]

We never even locked our doors until one Halloween night a very, very drunk girl walked into our house at 2am. That's enough to scare you straight. We got a lovely court ordered applogy letter in the mail.

[youdontsay]

We've had a lot of break ins in our neighborhood so I lock and alarm my car. In the summer we leave the backyard light on to deter people from using our pool. We have both doors with deadbolts but that's it. H is thinking about getting a home security system through Comcast but he's waiting until our cable/internet contract runs out so that he can negotiate.

Sorry this is happening in your neighborhood, it sucks especially when you've lived there long enough to be comfortable.

[Deleted]

We recently added a home security system to our house. We live in a nice neighborhood; however, there has been an increase in middle of the night break ins. There's nothing more creepy to me than having someone in your house while you're sleeping.

We have glass break sensors, window sensors, and door sensors. We only set the alarm when we are at home, sleeping. The monitoring service is through Comcast, our cable/internet company. It's reasonably priced. Unfortunately, we're locked into a contract. In retrospect, I wish I would have found someone like SimpliSafe!

[JulietRose]

We have ADT and put wood in the sliding window and door. Our neighborhood is nice and safe, but I have an active imagination and watch a lot of scary movies (one of my favorite genres) and I just feel better. I also have an escape plan all ready in my head. Yeah, I'm nuts.

[joy]

Apr 2, 2015 14:54:27 GMT -5 @emilie818 said:

Simplisafe looks amazing - thank you joy and goldenlove3 for recommending The fact that it is portable and not wired makes it good for us renting types.

Seriously - it's great.  Purchase the system, customize as you like, install yourself.  No monthly fee unless you want it.

Their customer service is great, too.  I've emailed them twice over little things in the past two years.  They always got back me quickly and with very detailed answers. 

Thumbs up.

[lazyreader]

We have a dropcam. Which is just a camera that hooks up to our wifi and we can log in via the app on our mobile devices, or the website if we are out and about.
We pay $100 (per year) for recording for the last 7days. It's advertised for home security and we will use ours for that when we need to.

[lilsneezy]

I don't have security where I live but I have ADT at my business. We have a regular door alarm, motion detectors and 1 camera and it comes to $69 a month. Before we had the camera it was less than $50 a month but the extra $19 for the camera is totally worth it. I have an app that lets me watch the camera right from my phone and I can also control the alarm with it. It definitely puts my mind at ease.

[thechickencoop]

Apr 2, 2015 13:54:50 GMT -5 Lollipop said:

We live in a relatively safe area, in a main floor apartment. We keep all of the windows locked, unless they're open to catch a breeze (very rare, we just use fans), and the patio door is always locked, with a piece of wood to stop it from opening. We keep the front door locked at all times, and the building has locks.

We don't have a security system at all. We've never felt the need for one.

ETA: we SHOULD have renter's insurance, especially after our last place flooded, but we keep procrastinating.

OMG please, please,PLEASE get renters insurance! !! The cost is so negligibl! We had a fire at our old house that we rented; everybody was safe but there was A LOT of smoke damage - our dry cleaning bill alone was almost 8 thousand. Eight fucking thousand dollars to clean our clothes/sheets/fabric stuff. We paid our...deductible, forget what that was now.

[thechickencoop]

Apr 2, 2015 15:29:06 GMT -5 joy said:

Apr 2, 2015 14:54:27 GMT -5 @emilie818 said:

Simplisafe looks amazing - thank you joy and goldenlove3 for recommending The fact that it is portable and not wired makes it good for us renting types.

Seriously - it's great.  Purchase the system, customize as you like, install yourself.  No monthly fee unless you want it.

Their customer service is great, too.  I've emailed them twice over little things in the past two years.  They always got back me quickly and with very detailed answers. 

Thumbs up.

I'm excited to look into this! Thank you! I never realized there were so many home security options. We live in the middle of the woods, in a very safe area. We only have a couple neighbors but H suffers from severe anxiety and I had briefly looked into security systems in the past but they're also expensive, all required moniroring, etc. I guess I didn't look as far into it as I should have because I didn't know stuff like this was around. This may actually help...

[Deleted]

A cheap deterrent would be those door alarms you can get from lowes. We have one on every door and you can even get ones with a code.

[ghostmonkey]

Apr 2, 2015 13:30:10 GMT -5 requiressnacks said:

We have an alarm system that we rarely use because the dog sets off the sensors - so I'm not sure if I'd recommend getting one.

BUT - When I was a renter, I did have my apartment broken into once so I would definitely recommend that you have renters insurance. It was a godsend when tons of my stuff got stolen.

You should be able to override the controls and shut off the motion sensors. We had to do that with the dogs as well. But the door and glass break sensors were still up and running. 

And setting it off won't send cops immediately. You can turn it off. The alarm company will call you. If you tell them all is well, it was an accident, everything is done and the police/fire dept are not notified. If they can't reach you then they will send someone out.

[ghostmonkey]

Apr 2, 2015 14:00:36 GMT -5 kcones88 said:

Back when my husband was single, he bought one of the signs you put outside your house when you have an alarm system. He bought it on eBay and it's still there today, despite the fact that we have no alarm system. It's definitely illegal, but we haven't had any complaints yet.

We also have a dog that barks at any shadow that passes our house, and a gun for when we're home.

Maybe we just have a different view on "home security" than others.

And what good does that gun do when you aren't home?

[ghostmonkey]

Apr 2, 2015 22:12:05 GMT -5 @sluttybigb00bz said:

Apr 2, 2015 22:06:44 GMT -5 ghostmonkey said:

You should be able to override the controls and shut off the motion sensors. We had to do that with the dogs as well. But the door and glass break sensors were still up and running. 

And setting it off won't send cops immediately. You can turn it off. The alarm company will call you. If you tell them all is well, it was an accident, everything is done and the police/fire dept are not notified. If they can't reach you then they will send someone out.

We use a local alarm company for our office. I'm third on the call list. They've called me in the middle of the night or on weekends when it goes off and actually asked me if I want to drive down there before they call the police. Um FUCK NO! 

We probably wouldn't have been so annoyed with the alarm (at our house) if it weren't for the pets, and we probably would have tried more to make it work if we had concerns in our new neighborhood. The people who lived here had a special needs son and I think they maybe had controls in place so they'd know if he was trying to leave without permission, I'm not entirely sure...I just know we ripped it out fast!

An office that you aren't currently at is massively different than a house you are standing in when they call. 

And it is nice to have the chime to know if DS goes out a door.

[onesweetworld]

Thank you for starting this thread and thank you joy for making me spend $500 at midnight because I was scared lol

[swivelchair5]

Apr 2, 2015 13:26:29 GMT -5 pismoduo said:

*snip*

Alarms and cameras only work if the thieves know you have them. I once heard a police officer joke that the best home security option is one of those little "protected by (security company x)" signs. Even if you don't actually have protection from them.

I have also heard that 'Beware of Dog' signs are effective, or having a leash or dog bowl visible.

[ghostmonkey]

Apr 3, 2015 5:35:04 GMT -5 swivelchair5 said:

Apr 2, 2015 13:26:29 GMT -5 pismoduo said:

*snip*

Alarms and cameras only work if the thieves know you have them. I once heard a police officer joke that the best home security option is one of those little "protected by (security company x)" signs. Even if you don't actually have protection from them.

I have also heard that 'Beware of Dog' signs are effective, or having a leash or dog bowl visible.

Dogs are not the deterrent that people think they are. 

And lack of barking/dog poop is going to be a bit of a tip off.