🚀 go-pugleaf

fmrco!msommer@uunet.uu.net (Mark Sommer) writes:
>We bought a house this summer equipped with an alarm system from
>American Alarm.
>Any advice from alarm owners out there?

I installed my own alarm last year when there were a number of burglary
incidents.  I've never really been tempted to use an alarm monitoring
service, especially after an incident a few months ago:

I was sitting at my desk at work when the phone rang.  It was my alarm
system's phone-dialer, so I called my boyfriend at his workplace (he
was a lot closer to home at the time).  He called police, who showed
up at the house about three minutes later.  The police officer found
my upstairs neighbor at the front door carrying a shotgun, and had him
get his firearm ID while they determined there was nothing amiss with
my apartment.  Then the upstairs neighbor grabbed a large knife and
went around to the back stair.  He pushed against the (unlocked) back
door to my apartment, setting off the alarm again (and demonstrating a
probable reason for the first alarm) and the police officer met him
around back.  Then he had to explain this huge knife to the officer!

I got a kick out of this story.  Suffice it to say I'm satisfied with the
service I get from the local cops.  (Somerville.)

Dump your alarm "service" company and buy a telephone dialer if it's
not already part of your system.  Set it up to call you and/or someone
else who can be reached most of the time.  If need be, get a beeper;
beepers cost less than alarm service contracts.

-rich