What are home alarms for, other than driving your neighbours up the wall?

[Pallet Fancier]

Neighbour one door down has an alarm that's been going off since shortly after he left, this morning. All. ****ing. Day.

It's not as if we all down tools and rush out into the street and form a vigilante mob outside the house the moment we hear anything! So what the living hell is the point of these stupid devices? Do insurers give out discounts for having them? No insurer I've ever been with has. If some do, they're just as much fools, because they're about as useful in deterring thieves as a gravel driveway - all a gravel driveway does is coat the pavement with loose stone, provide ammunition for delinquent kids and make every day of your life harder as you trudge through a loose surface, push a cart or carry a heavy weight, or spend your life trying to pick out the fallen leaves so they don't mulch down and turn your gravel into the kind of stoney soil hill farmers weep about.

A home alarm is even more stupid than a gravel drive.

Grrrr

I shall now have a cup of tea. And contemplate getting the big ladder out. I think I left it next to the lump hammer...

 

[Spectric]

All you need is expanding foam, if you decide to burgle the house then over a few days just keep setting the alarm off and then people get used to it and will just ignore whilst you break in.

 

[Sporky McGuffin]

I believe expanding foam may be more effective (if less satisfying) than the lump hammer.

 

[Pallet Fancier]

They're ignoring it on day one, never mind day three or four. If this is a burglary tactic, someone is wasting his time.

Lump hammer is more fun than foam

 

[flying haggis]

i thought the sounder was supposed to stop sounding after a certain length of time and there is a max time so it might be faulty

 

[Pallet Fancier]

i thought the sounder was supposed to stop sounding after a certain length of time and there is a max time so it might be faulty

It's on... off... on... off... they all do this. It stops, you breath out, relax, it starts again and the vein in your forehead bursts. This one is really high pitched and screeching. Like having tinnitus.

 

[Just4Fun]

A home alarm is even more stupid than a gravel drive.

OK, I'll bite. What is wrong with a gravel drive?

 

[DrPhill]

I lived next door to a chap once - conspicuously well off. He asked me if I would check his house if his alarm went off when he went away on holiday. I declined - no way I wanted to interrupt felons doing their job. He was really disappointed - "what is the point of me having an alarm if you are not going to check it?". Shrug.
I use the 'look like a poor house with nothing to steal' strategy. Cheaper and easier. And really effective if you live next door to someone obviously well off.

 

[Pedronicus]

Our alarm goes off occasionally when someone walks on our gravel drive at dead of night!

 

[D_W]

OK, I'll bite. What is wrong with a gravel drive?

dusty - leaves a film of dust on your car and all your outside stuff if you're nearby. If you're close enough, some of the gravel ends up in your yard.

If you live far from your neighbor - nothing.

(the above items don't rise to the level of being trouble to me - we had gravel when I was a kid. It was more trouble for us than it was for the neighbors, but had the neighbors been nearby, we could've launched plenty of gravel into their yard by accident with the snowblower. "I think we can get it own a little lower".

(loud clicking noise)

"I think we're throwing the top layer of the driveway, maybe we should get it a little higher".

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Our alarm goes off occasionally when someone walks on our gravel drive at dead of night!

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I have an easy way to disable this type of alarm:

 

[Inspector]

Curious. Don't you guys have monitored alarm services? If the alarm goes off they ask through speakers and microphones in the house if it is a false alarm or malfunction and you'd have to give the correct response. If they don't get it they will call for police, fire, etc and if needed can shut it off from their end. Some systems tie it into monitors for seniors to check on their well being. If you have a camera system they will look at what is going on and call authorities or shut it off as appropriate. You get a discount on your insurance from some carriers if you have a monitored system. If you have a system that goes off too often the city can fine you.

Pete

 

[Sporky McGuffin]

I have an easy way to disable this type of alarm:

That'd disable mine for all of fifteen seconds, assuming they didn't fight over it and then mug you for more.

Security is more about layers than any one thing. We have CCTV and radar with on and off site recording and analytics as the soft outer layer. PIRs and security lights next, then gravel on the side paths, then high security doors and windows and locks, then the interference-activate strobe lights, then the dogs, then the shotguns. Most importantly we live somewhere with very low crime.

Also a battle unicorn, which is a rhino with a gun for a nose, and the gun fires killer bees with laser pistols. And mustard. Anyone who makes it past that has to do a really difficult sudoku while eating cheap cream of mushroom soup. While wearing mohair pants.

 

[Geoff_S]

In some cases it’s a condition for house insurance

 

[Thingybob]

I lived next door to a chap once - conspicuously well off. He asked me if I would check his house if his alarm went off when he went away on holiday. I declined - no way I wanted to interrupt felons doing their job. He was really disappointed - "what is the point of me having an alarm if you are not going to check it?". Shrug.
I use the 'look like a poor house with nothing to steal' strategy. Cheaper and easier. And really effective if you live next door to someone obviously well off.

Totaly agree an alarm says you have something worth pinching , Many years ago i was fitting a loft ladder at a very rich friend of my wifes house she came home one day with a massive plasma tv when i arrived next day at the side of the house was a large cardboard box with large print saying "plasma tv " and a couple of boxes saying "surround sound system and dvd player/recorder" I sugested she take boxes to tip so as not to advertise what sh had inside " Its ok we have state of the art alarm fitted and cctv cameras " she got robbed a month later they took the lot including much more

 

[Stigmorgan]

We had a neighbours house alarm go off early one morning so like a good neighbour I called the police, they weren't interested, after about 6 hours of constant alarm bells I called the council to report nuisance noise, they said to call the police.

 

[Sandyn]

That'd disable mine for all of fifteen seconds,

Just long enough for the tranquiliser to take effect

 

[baldkev]

I have an easy way to disable this type of alarm:

I once worked on a property with 2 german shepherds. They were kept in a big cage in the courtyard. As soon as they heard or saw someone they would go mental, snarling, barking, throwing themselves at the cage to get out.... they were attack dogs.
Only the owner and their trainer could interact with them. If the owner died or couldnt get back to shut them away for some reason, the wife would have to call the trainer out to sort it because the dogs would attack her given the chance..... why would you???
Edit to say, only the trainer and owner could feed them, they wouldnt accept food from anyone else.

 

[Robbo3]

Car alarms can be nearly as bad. Always have to check that it's not mine as I've never heard it & don't know what it sounds like.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

I once worked on a property with 2 german shepherds. They were kept in a big cage in the courtyard. As soon as they heard or saw someone they would go mental, snarling, barking, throwing themselves at the cage to get out.... they were attack dogs.
Only the owner and their trainer could interact with them. If the owner died or couldnt get back to shut them away for some reason, the wife would have to call the trainer out to sort it because the dogs would attack her given the chance..... why would you???
Edit to say, only the trainer and owner could feed them, they wouldnt accept food from anyone else.

It is astonishing what they have done to German Shepherds - we were given one which, after it bit everyone and everything (guess why we were given it?) we finally gave it back to the breeder, who enthusiastically took it back to breed even more insane, deranged dogs. It was one of the Crufts "designer dog" versions, rather than a proper scrapyard Alsatian.