I would never own a house alarm that stealthily rang police. Oh hell No!!! Absolutely not.
My mom’s alarm company always calls first and we provide a code. The men in blue are not called and life peacefully goes on.
This article has more details. The men said they had just talked to the alarm company. So why did the police get called?
My anger would be directed at the alarm company. Not the police. You’re paying for alarm service and end up in a situation like this? I’d fire that alarm company the very next business day.
If he said “I have ID to prove I’m the homeowner” I didn’t hear it on the video, just the guy refusing commands from the officer and saying he didn’t do anything.
Police responding to an alarm in progress is stressful for them and the homeowner.
I don’t understand why the alarm company notified the cops.
False alarms are so routine. The alarm company calls, homeowner gives the code, end of story. That’s how it’s supposed to work.
My mom recently downsized into a much smaller home. It was prewired for vivint. What a POS. We’ve never turned that thing on and never joined vivint. The turned off alarm started giving us nag beeps. It required multiple calls to vivint to get that damn thing to shut up.
Imagine calling a company without an account. You POS alarm is nagging us.
btw, that’s vivint’s idea of sales marketing. We saw sales pitches on the digital read out several times. Then the nagging beeps began.
I was warned by neighbors not to try and physically remove it. Supposedly there’s a siren hidden somewhere in the attic or walls. “turning it off” doesn’t ever end the communication with the vivint servers.
All the houses on this street wire vivint into the security, electrical wiring, and HVAC during construction.
Smart homes. :eek: There’s a down side to letting vivint control your lights.
There was a great article series on McSweeneys a few years ago called Fear, Inc, about how fear is used to sell things, and one of the articles is on Home Security Alarms.
Alarms are overwhelmingly sold by implying that they’ll keep you and your family safe. But, they don’t really do that. They are mostly to protect your stuff.
And here we see how the alarm actually makes you less safe. Having an automated system that occasionally summons armed agents of the state to your house with suspicion that a crime is in progress while you’re semi-asleep and not thinking clearly is one of the more dangerous things you can do.
It’s the same reason that grabbing a gun in the middle of the night when you hear an intruder is pretty questionable as far as safety goes. Yes, if a bad guy breaks in, you’ll have a weapon. But you’re a lot more likely to shoot someone you know who lives with you because you’re not really fully awake.
This is obviously what he should have done, but good luck remembering to do and say the exact right thing when you’re semi-asleep, your adrenaline is raging because you think someone’s breaking in, and then someone’s pointing a gun at you.
I’m not sure how I would prove that the house is mine.
I don’t get utility bills mailed anymore. I guess statements from my bank and insurance claims would have to suffice. My name is on the envelopes. I have my driver’s license. Wouldn’t be easy thinking clearly with cops confronting me.
It’s a bit bizzare to realize it could be necessary to prove I belong in my own house.
Somewhere in the house there’s an alarm panel. Disconnect it’s communication line (phone line, probably), remove the battery and cut the power to it.
If there is actually some type of hidden siren that is wired in such a way to go off in this situation, you’ll be able to find it when it’s sounding and can cut the wires. Hell, cut all the wires coming from the box.
Or, just cut the wires to the phone line and siren. Then it can spend all day thinking it’s making noise but nothing’s happening.
So far the vivint box hasn’t nagged or beeped since our last confrontation with customer service.
Apparently the last owner stuck them with a bill. That’s not surprising because we got it as a VA repo. Bought it from a bank.
The house was surprisingly clean and undamaged under the circumstances. Probably a single owner that got behind on payments. House had been empty at least 2 years.
My area experienced a marked increase in property crimes over the last 2 years. This has included groups of up to 4 (armed) breaking into multiple houses, 2 home invasion attempts, and a long series of car and garage break ins, both at night and during the workday.
My neighbors all responded by buying a ton of security cameras. As I predicted, we now have (thru neighborhood social media) lots and lots of quality video of people breaking into houses, cars, and garages. I smile ruefully when yet another posts “…and he just ignored the cameras and broke in – we couldn’t see their faces because of the hoodies!” My thoughts: “Ya think?”
Based on what I’ve read, home burglaries and property theft are just barely prosecuted anyway. The only number I found was on a security services site, and it claimed a 3% conviction rate. I suspect those few actual convictions result in extremely light sentences. A security camera is a threat to the thief of the following: “If we get a picture of your face, and the video doesn’t get lost, and the police decide to investigate it, and eventually you end up in court, there’s a miniscule chance that you’ll spend a few days in jail and get free dental care for your toothache before you’re freed again – so you’d better watch out!”
If you care about safety of your family instead of your things, your effort should go to keeping them out, not taking their picture. Windows and doors can be made nearly unbreachable. Locks, strikeplates and hinges can be modified to withstand almost any attack a common thief can apply. And once done, you can relax knowing nothing short of a SWAT team can get inside. I advocate this, because after fortifying your home, you no longer feel the need to have a weapon ready. If someone actually starts trying to batter their way into my house, I’ll just fix some coffee and watch out of curiosity. If the police are eventually involved, I’m not going to be armed when they arrive.
My neighbors armed themselves with silicon. I chose steel.
If you don’t want the police notified of an alarm, then don’t have your alarm system monitored, or get rid of the system completely and just keep the signs and stickers.
I worked for ADT/Wells Fargo for a number of years … one of my friends who did tech services there back in the day mounted small security cameras in planters on the ground aimed upish, it catches the downturned hoodied faces just fine. Caught a few porch prowlers that way.
Another friend of my husband planted some sort of cactus in his plantings - nobody likes going near his windows now for some strange reason [choya? ocotilla? whatever, it has like 2 inch thorns!]
This is why I don’t have one now. I determined I don’t have much worth stealing! My wife’s better jewelry was stolen years ago when we lived in an apartment. Probably the most “fencable” item we own is the Honda lawn mower sitting in the unlocked shed.
We have a security system (Protection One, now owned by ADT) for our home. We have carbon monoxide sensors, smoke/fire sensors, door sensors, window sensors, glass-break sensors, and motion sensors. To be honest, with the exception of the carbon monoxide and smoke sensors it is about protecting our stuff from loss by theft or fire. We own a lot of stuff… jewelry, a modest art collection, computers and devices, etc. We have zero external cameras other than our Ring doorbell. I do not think they are an effective deterrent for a variety of reasons. When we are not home, we want protection of our home and stuff and a nice screeching audible alarm until the police or fire arrive. Yes, our company calls us before dispatching fire or police. When we are at home, I have no Rambo-like fantasy of confronting an intruder with a gun. I never understand why people grab a gun and run to confront, especially if you have family in the house. If the screeching alarm doesn’t encourage them to make a fast exit we are insured and stuff can be replaced. I’ll post up in a secure and defensible spot and wait for the police. I’m not killing someone or escalating the risk to myself over a watch or an iPad*.
We do have a lot of people with Ring doorbells or other video cameras on the exterior of their home around here. Footage is routinely shared in our neighborhood group online. What many have experienced however is that in a break-in there really isn’t a high priority on investigating and prosecuting these crimes even if it was captured on video. There is even question as to whether the video is usable by the police or prosecutors. Seems strange to me but what do I know…
*But I will defend myself and family with force if the screeching alarm doesn’t send you running and you decide to come up the stairs to where my family is now mostly half-asleep, scared, and you threaten us.