Home Defense: First Warning

[mbt2001]

Alarm, dogs, neighbors.

Don't forget that good relations with your neighbors is another layer of security. When everyone helps to watch out for strangers, BGs find it harder to cruise and case your home.

+1

Slightly before, during and after Hurricane Ike some of our neighbors and I started using FRS radio's to communicate. Great help during the hurricane and after and we have kept it going as a quasi neighborhood watch, which has worked great.

It is only 3 or 4 houses, but considering that home invaders are clipping power and telephone lines and the commencing the B&E, these make a ton of sense.... Especially in Rural areas.

 

[Byron Quick]

Not mine. Every once in awhile i have to work way late. I have 2 dogs a min-pin and a brittany, both of them slept through me opening the door, walking into the kitchen, walking down the hallway into my room (where they were sleeping), getting undressed and climbing into bed with my wife. They slept the whole time... worthless dogs!

Your dogs probably know the sounds you make well enough that it doesn't wake them up. Test them. Alert your wife to the test beforehand. Select someone the dogs don't know. Give him the key. Don't accompany him to the door as the dogs will hear you and recognize your sounds. See if they sleep through his entry. Now your dogs are definitely lacking in paranoia. I've had several dogs who knew my sounds well but wouldn't accept their hearing; they had to smell me to relax.

There is an element to loud, piercing alarms scaring off criminals that you might want to assess for yourselves. The next time a loud alarm goes off somewhere close by, please observe people and how most of them ignore it and go about their business. A lot of alarms aren't monitored and there is no response. Criminals trip the alarm, withdraw, and observe the response or lack thereof during the reconaissance. If the neighborhood ignores it, they come back later and ignore the alarm. You cannot trust the volume of an alarm to scare off the criminal as some of them aren't scared. I'm not saying to ditch the loud alarm. But make it only one part of the overall plan and do not plan on it scaring a criminal away.

 

[VegasOPM]

I believe in layering home defense. I have lights across the front of the house, locked gate to the back yard with 2- 150watt floods on motion sensor, hardened front door, double locked windows, full alarm system with glass breakage sensor, 4 dogs (45-75lbs), night time lighting downstairs, multiple firearms and a safe room if it all goes wrong.

If someone is coming in, I'll know it well before they make it near me. A home invasion would be a bad idea....

 

[morenc00]

In my case it's basics

1- fence around the backyard
2- motion activated lights at the entrance of the drive way
3- home made steel bars in the windows/doors the most likely to be used as entrance points.
4- abloy brand door locks theses locks can be set so they can't be opened from the inside if you does not have the key.
5- winchester 1200 police with buckshot

I will buy a dog in the next year since it already served us well. 7 years ago when I was stilll living at my parents home we had a 70 pound irish setter. In the middle of the afternoon, some kind of ex prisoner pretending to sell some stuff entered by the side door that wasn't locked. This guy climbed the 3 steps to go in the hallway till the dog realised something was wrong. This guy has been lucky because the door between him and the dog was closed. At that point the dog was barking like hell on his side of the french style door and the guy standing about one feet on the other side. He didn't moved at all till we arrived. We had to calm down the down the dog so it won't break the door... then the police came to pick up the guy...

This dog was pretty impressive at recognizing the sounds. If someone used the doorbell it would not bark, but if you tried to knock on the door it was sure it would bark. Idem for the fence around the backyard no one could toutch it without the whole family knowing. At that time my father had a diesel truck (landcruiser) and the dog was able to recognize him coming for the lunch while he was nearly a half mile from home. (we lived in town near two boulevards ,the dog was inside the house all doors and windows closed)

 

[chuwee81]

well, our (wife's) friend told us about the 2 way alarm monitoring system. Basically like "on-star" for your house. Comes with a motion detector, noise alarm, 2 keypads (1 master bedrm) and speaker/ mike unit. If motion detector is tripped or there's a sign of forced entry, the operator will call via the speaker n mike unit. If you say the wrong code or no response at all, they know you're in trouble or someone has broken in and will call the cops. It's 30 bux a month but we feel it's worth it.

also, got a little 4 month old chizer (chihuahua- Schnauzer) who likes to bark at anything. even construction workers working on a house 50 yds away.

Funny story, went out mowing the front yard, forgot to grab my keys. so i locked myself out of the house with the puppy inside. I jumped over the fence in my backyard to see if i left the backdoor or window open. He barked at me until he recognized my voice telling him to calm down.

 

[Old Guy]

I live in an end unit of four homes, We have only one vehicle, inside garage.

12 months ago some one opened the door on a vehicle belonging to a neighbor, not locked! Walked off with his lap top and big bulky brief case, sat on the chair outside my front door, little alcove, while he went through it. That's when I noticed the motion detector did not work!!

I now turn on two outside lights (energy saver, bright bulbs) each night.

Six foot fence around small back yard, dogs in the two closest homes, they bark for exercise! Go nuts if some one gets close! Metal door out side of front door.

3M hurricane film on all glass, stairs double back on themselves, two mini landings, hard to navigate in the dark, even harder if soaking up 127g 9mm bullets.

 

[gregormeister]

The pug mix is our alarm.

 

[crebralfix]

CDH,

I hate to break it to you, but your guards were sleeping on duty.

 

[Deltaboy1984]

Psyco cat and getting a dog to go with my motion lites and security storm doors and dead bolts.