Home Security Camera's

[dday9]

My parents have had 4 break in's since the beginning of the year. That's a lot of break in's! It's actually gotten so bad that my younger brother caught one, clocked him in him mouth and the guy went scurrying out the window he crawled up(my brother's room is an upstairs apartment above my parent's garage). He's also tried shooting at another with a .22 when he was inside my parents house and found two guys poking around, of course my brother barely hits squirrels with a 12 gauge bird shot, so he missed. It's not just their house though, it's the other neighbor's as well. There is an older lady in her 80s that had a few guys in her house, at 10 AM, I mean come on, in the middle of the day!

What I've decided to do is buy my parents a few home security camera's to monitor their home. Their home is very big, 3111 square feet, with three doors. Two on the east side and one on the west side of the home, then add an additional 2 car garage with a two story apartment attached to it. To top it all off, there is an additional 500 square foot courtyard separating the garage and house. So there is a lot of area to cover!

Does anyone have a home security system that they'd recommend, because this is turning into a real nuisance. I'm willing to splurge a bit on this so that I can make my mom feel safe in her own home.

[TysonLPrice]

If it was me and I had the bucks I call a professional security company like ADP or something. Get the around the clock monitoring, panic buttons, and the other whistles and bells available.

[dunfiddlin]

I have to say I've never been a great fan of cameras as a security measure. The break-ins still happen but now you've got nice pictures of people in full camouflage to show to the family. Not really much of an advance. Ok there will be some deterrent effect for the casual burglar but anyone doing the thing 'properly' isn't going to be bothered in the slightest. Alarms are only useful if you can guarantee that there will be a response within a time frame short enough to catch the perpetrator red handed. Noise only alarms are completely useless. Nobody pays them the slightest attention (including the police!) The greatest deterrent, is still something alive and scary like dogs and/or noisy like geese (or, if you're in that income bracket, a lot of men in black!)

As an insurance underwriter way back when I was always taught that you couldn't keep everybody out even with the most sophisticated alarms, locks, etc. So our primary responsibility was to make it as difficult as possible for them to get out again with anything of value!

[Shaggy Hiker]

That's a pretty high rate of break-ins. Maybe I shouldn't have posted those stories about you keeping gold bullion under your bed???

There's a site that I have dealt with called something like DIY Home Security, but I forget at the moment and don't have the link handy. They have a variety of systems both wired and wireless. I put in a Visonic system nearly a decade back. I put in contact sensors on all doors and windows, motion detectors, fire alarms, flood detectors (with the hot water tank on the second floor, a broken pipe could be pretty catastrophic), and a glass break sensor (mostly just because I could). That system also has a carbon monoxide detector, but I don't have any gas service, and use electric heat, so I have no real carbon monoxide source.

The system also has gone much more web-based, lately. I got a dummy front end that talks to me, and looks like it might be the security panel, but isn't. The actual security panel is hidden and silent. The system can be set up with a GSM sim card so that it calls out using cell service, which gets around the simple flaw to most home security systems: Cut the phone line and they won't do squat. In fact, many security systems could be disabled by taking a phone off the hook. Unless they were set up right, that would make the line unavailable, and the security system wouldn't call out.

Another feature, which I haven't bothered with, is an internet capable securtiy camera. That seems like overkill for me, but I live in an area with very little crime. One thing that I did add, then found barely any use for, was an X-10 tie in. X-10 is a system that sends signals through the power lines in your walls. The idea is that you could have it turn on some lights, electrical outlets, or other things when tripped. I was thinking of leaving a radio plugged into an X-10 wall socket such that the radio would turn on when the security system tripped. A few select lights would turn on, also. X-10 wasn't made for security, it was made for home automation, and I couldn't find much use for it. You wouldn't want to convert your whole house over to X-10, I would say, because that would be expensive, and weird. Though, in theory, weird might be good. There are X-10 devices to power dimmers and automated blinds, so you could set it up that when somebody tripped the security, your whole house might start shaking and grooving, which would probably freak out the burglars. Some lights could start flashing, others brightening then dimming, while the blinds were jumping up and down, or back and forth. You'd almost want to have burglars, at that point, just to get their reaction.

What I liked about the Visonic system, aside from being a very Do-It-Yourself friendly wireless system, was that it allowed you to set it up to call a security service, or any other number. Some of those systems will ONLY allow you to enter the specifics for a security service, so you HAVE to have one or the system won't do much of anything (unless you add a siren). Police HATE security services. The service doesn't do anything other than call the local police. In some areas, responding to false alarms from home security systems takes up a significant portion (the number I remember was around 40%) of the time for the department. When I got an alarm at 4:00AM while I was out of town, I also got a note from the police saying that I got something like one free false-alarm per year, and after that they'd bill me something like $50 per response if it turned out to be a false alarm. In that particular case, the wind had blown open the cheesy back door (which I promptly replaced with a real exterior door that had a deadbolt). The police then wandered through my house setting off several other alarms. They were in the house inside of 10 minutes, though, so I was pretty happy with the response time. I was also pretty much able to follow their course based on the alarms I was getting.

[Steve R Jones]

If it was me and I had the bucks I call a professional security company like ADP or something. Get the around the clock monitoring, panic buttons, and the other whistles and bells available.

Ditto. Contact your insurance company. Many will give you a 15% discount on your home insurance policy if you get a good system... It'll help a little to offset the cost of the security system.

[dday9]

Ha, I am the insurance company! No seriously, the company I work for insurer's my family's home. But it is a 15% discount :]

[Lamees]

Locate camera at the front of the home and 1 east and 1 west side. 1 in the garage and 1 in the front of living room and 1 at the back side of the home. Otherwise counselling with a related person or builder is better.

[FunkyDexter]

Buy geese

[szlamany]

Geese poop a lot - I can see how that would work

[dday9]

And they bite! I remember being a little kid at one of my cousins farm and there were some geese. I went to pet it and it bit the crap out of my hand. I've yet to get revenge... Although I'm sure it's dead by now, that been probably 17, 18 years ago.

[FunkyDexter]

I've yet to get revenge

Roll on XMas...

Although I was being focetious there's actually an underlying point. The single best security system you can have is some kind of guard animal. Geese are great though they do tend to upset the neighbours so a mid to large sized dog's proably a better choice. And it doesn't really need to be trained as a guard dog. Almost any dog will get extremely territorial when their master's away absent, it's just in their nature. Even the ones that seem soft and cuddly the rest of the time will almost invariably react if an intruder enters when you're not there.

Also, a camera's leg doesn't spasm when you tickle it behind the ear.

[szlamany]

Also, a camera's leg doesn't spasm when you tickle it behind the ear.

I must be a dog...

[dunfiddlin]

The single best security system you can have is some kind of guard animal.

Really? Is that a fact? You'd have thought someone would have mentioned that around about post #3 ... oh!

Geese are great though they do tend to upset the neighbours

Given my neighbours that sounds like their best selling point!

Almost any dog will get extremely territorial when their master's away absent, it's just in their nature

True, but then the reason for this master being absent is almost always that he's taking the dog for a walk so it can be a bit self-defeating! You'd need two which you walk separately. But then that would double the time you're away so ...

Nah, if I ever have anything worth stealing (about equal with the chances of the Earth reversing its direction of rotation!) I'm settling for the geese and the neighbours can go hang (or just GO!)

[Steve R Jones]

The suburb of Dallas that I live in has started a new program that hopefully will catch on in other cities... They get residents with home camera systems to register... If there is a crime on their street - the police departments ask the residents to view their video to see if they caught anything. So far they've been successful two times and made two arrests.

[FunkyDexter]

You'd have thought someone would have mentioned that around about post #3

You know, I read your post when the thread first started... completely forgot about it... and then posted almost exactly the same thing. Still, they do say that Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

[Shaggy Hiker]

In this case it's the earliest form of senility.