House alarms

Street

Street

Street

Soldato
Joined
17 Jan 2005
Posts
8,774
Location
Liverpool
Well after being away for the weekend and coming home to find my house had been broken into again I figured it is time to invest in an alarm! I got home at 1am on Monday morning to find my front door wedged shut by a table. I managed to force my way in to find every single room had been trashed, every picture pulled off the wall and even my birthday cards torn up! I think they'd broken in for my car again but after last time it was stolen I'm paranoid about hiding my keys so all they managed to get was my laptop and watch!

All the fancy locks and jammers I'd put in after I was broken into last time didn't stand up to a spade they'd taken from my shed so thought I should invest in an alarm as it might have limited the time they spent in my house.

What companies are worth looking at? Or should I just get some sort of kit and self install? And if so, which kits are worth looking at?

Is there anything else I could do that might improve security?

Thanks!
 
Get an alarm that is managed by a company and will call the police on activation, otherwise you are relying on neighbours to make the call, which often doesn't happen.
 
Sorry to hear that you've been burgled :(

As above look for a company certified by NSI, the certification is Nacoss Gold, that offer monitored alarms. I personally would avoid the big national companies (mainly ADT), and stick with something more local. If you get an alarm that's holds a Nacoss certificate, it might save you money on your house insurance.
 
I would go for a wired system and have it done by the professionals as others have said maybe a monitored system, the reason i say a wired one is i find that the wireless ones will activate falsely well my parents one did till they had it replaced with a wired system.
 
ADT?

Some sort of pro wired alarm that calls back to a managed service that calls police etc.

Put stickers on the doors saying it's alarmed and maybe real/dummy CCTV?
 
Police won't attend an alarm call out just on the basis of a monitored alarm going off. Only if there is sightings of an actual break in.
 
Visoninc PowerMax. Installed my own. Mix of a dozen or so sensors and a couple of integrated IR cameras. Rings and texts me over a land-line, emails me over the internet (GSM backup if the line goes down) and I can activate/de-activate, view camera recordings and alerts on a android/apple smartphone app. Has keyfobs for different zone home/away arming (e.g ignores upstairs PIR's when you're in bed) and proximity tags for the kids to get in/out.

Fantastic bit of kit, sensors are supervised, report battery levels and tampering etc. System records movement for review and evidence. Contacts a list of people starting with the monitoring station if you want one. I'd pay for reliable technology that avoids false alarms, the Visonic PIR's are pretty clever to avoid that.

http://www.visonic.com/Products/Wired-Detectors/Next-pir
 
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LeeUK said:
Police won't attend an alarm call out just on the basis of a monitored alarm going off. Only if there is sightings of an actual break in.
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Yes they will. Tried and tested at my own house.


E: when I say "tried & tested" what I really mean to say is that they attended when mine had been going off for a while.
 
I don't know about residential properties but I have experience with business/retail premises from being in various key holder roles. Police will never attend when ever the alarm has gone off. They would only do so if there is signs of a break in. E.g. door caved in, window smashed, etc. Not because a PIR was triggered.
 
Invest in a gun?

What kind of scumbags, ok, if you're gonna rob the place to fund your drug habit, do it. That's bad enough.

But trashing your house, ripping down pictures and tearing up birthday cards? What a bunch of absolute scumbags. Are you sure this isn't someone you recently made enemies with?
 
LeeUK said:
I don't know about residential properties but I have experience with business/retail premises from being in various key holder roles. Police will never attend when ever the alarm has gone off. They would only do so if there is signs of a break in. E.g. door caved in, window smashed, etc. Not because a PIR was triggered.
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I can only speak for Hampshire, but we routinely attend premises alarm activations when notified by the alarm company.
 
Thanks for the replies!
I've got most of my house tidied up, removing fingerprint dust from everything is a pain..
Next job is to phone round some local companies today now that I've got proper internet access and see what they can offer me.

Father Ted said:
Move out of Liverpool?
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Sorry :o
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I never had any problems when I lived in a much worse area of the city! Now I'm in the nicer part I've been had twice in just over two years, I'm debating getting rid of my car so I'm not targeted again. :(

pitchfork said:
Invest in a gun?

What kind of scumbags, ok, if you're gonna rob the place to fund your drug habit, do it. That's bad enough.

But trashing your house, ripping down pictures and tearing up birthday cards? What a bunch of absolute scumbags. Are you sure this isn't someone you recently made enemies with?
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I think they were looking for cash in the cards as I was going to open them when I got back from my weekend away. Apparently one had £30 in which they took and they also emptied out my change jar which had about £20 in!

The trashing my house was the worst part, really hit hard.. Last time it didn't really affect me even though I was asleep upstairs as they were just in and out with my car keys!
 
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Street said:
I never had any problems when I lived in a much worse area of the city! Now I'm in the nicer part I've been had twice in just over two years, I'm debating getting rid of my car so I'm not targeted again. :(
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That's the trouble though, bad area = nothing worth nicking, good area = cash and new gear

You're not really safe wherever you live in a city
 
Street said:
All the fancy locks and jammers I'd put in after I was broken into last time didn't stand up to a spade they'd taken from my shed
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Could you describe what they did?
If perimeter security doesn't stand up to simple tools then I'd reckon that is still the first thing to look at. There are plenty if shuttering products to prevent entry via a window and any door is reinforceable.
An alarm is a bit of a last ditch effort, even if it does go off they have a good ten minutes before the police arrive.

Meanwhile, get a PIR and rig the output relay to a bell and a set of lights, basically the same thing as an alarm but will go off as soon as they get into the garden. Aim it to avoid triggering by a cat.
 
They climbed over the fence into my garden and pulled apart the bottom of my shed door, just wide enough to get a branch they'd pulled off a nearby tree through to hook a spade down off the opposite wall onto the floor where they could pull it out. They used that spade to force the back door locks apart then must have kicked it in to break the sash jammers I had all around the inside of the door.

I'm going to get some security lights sorted in the back garden and stick some glass or something along the top of my fence at the front to make it harder to climb over. My thinking with the alarm is that if I'd had one they might have been deterred from spending so long in my house and trashing everything!
 
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