Attempted Break In!!

The message from "Dave Liquorice" contains these words:

Insurance companies always have get-outs. And unless your claim is for several thousand pounds, it's certainly not worth making. Far better investing in sensible security in terms of secure storage areas within the premises, good outside lighting, good locks on doors, possibly decorative window grilles (but more sensibly, some really prickly plants outside every ground-floor window, and a dog. Most of these cost very little to implement.

Reply to
Appin
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I've had that. Stupid tenants on ground floor didnn't close door to street. Flats on upper floor, including mine, doors broken in despite two good locks. Now replaced with heavier stronger door, reinforced frame, two mortice locks and deadlocking latch. Putting an extra lock on the street door also helps if only by reminding people that it needs to be locked and unlocked not just walk through and trust it to slam shut.

Reply to
djc

How can you replicate the dog firing itself at the door and the sound of claws raking down the door panel ..that's a tricky one !!

Reply to
Usenet Nutter

Of course the upside is the deterrent effect.

Reply to
Bruce

The message from "Dave Plowman (News)" contains these words:

Three's more than one way to skin a cat. There are decorative approaches that are not as expensive as the "lift gate" manufactured grilles. And choosing some really prickly plants to grow up to cill level for a few feet out from the window should provide endless fun.

Reply to
Appin

Surely the sound of a large dog on an endless tape is just a kind of quiet rustling? I'm not sure that'd deter anyone...

Reply to
Jules

I think it is still NOT lawful in your house

Owner of a small warehouse near here used one of these to try to foil break ins. The policeman who went to investigate an alarm and found an insecure door discovered it. He (the owner) got a suspended sentence and payed the court costs

Reply to
JTM

MiL's dog, a friendly standard poodle was taught very quickly by my 15 month old son where his position was. Two whacks on his muzzle with sons fist when he stuck his muzzle into sons face was all it needed. I found out later that this was the way the mother disciplined her pups.

Malcolm

Reply to
Malcolm

Some of those *rent* you the system, so if you stop paying the monthly wonga they come and take it away.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

The emergency operator should be able to put the call through to the service control room local to the incident. It's not unknown for a 112 call from eg Dover to be answered in France. Also large networked PBX will not necessarily connect to the public exchange at every site.

Don't think so.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

That was before anybody had anything worth nicking and crims had to go up west to do their thieving.

Owain

Reply to
Owain

. Best insurance is 'good neighbours'. Who know you and your life style! And movements.

We don't socialise with our neighbours very often except for an oft- nightly cuppa and biscuits, but our very good neighbours opposite (about 100+ feet) and ourselves keep watch on each others house. Especially when one is away. And it has quite salutary effect, it seems, if one, seeing a stranger or delivery person knocking at the other door, goes out and asks if one can take a message for the neighbour "Who will be back shortly"! And/or "Can I sign for something?".

One device we use is a baby monitor with which we listen to the other house while the other family is away. We also installed an alarm system with a horn which can be heard over the baby monitor. And at times one can hear the electric heaters or the other fridge cut in! Our alarm system only activated once when an alarmed door was inadvertently opened!

We also leave the remote with our neighbours and they turn on our porch lights when they arrive home and make sure they do it at different times!

I also thought about, but did not, finally, extend my alarm sytem to my vehicle parked in the driveway to blow it's horn if and when the house alarm triggered. that would have involved a modification to one of the two key fobs that came with the vehicle.

My neighbour knowing that we were a somewhat computer literate family also told people locally that we had cameras located so that we were monitoring and recording activity in and around the house back to wherever we happened to be world wide!

We also make it be known that we never have anything valuable in the house; no money or valuables, also that we are 'stingy' (well 'frugal' anyway!) so we don't own anything that's worthwhile stealing! The kitchen stove is our, at least third used etc. The fridge around 30 years? The TV was well used when we got it over five years ago and fixed it for $4! The couple of computers were long ago home assembled using various bits and the furniture is 20 to 40 years old! Comfortable and long paid for. And hey it all works! Got two printers recently for zero and one cam with ink cartridges for an existing printer; fixed that printer with match stick other day so all is well!

A more affluent friend of our daughter has a house and contents probably valued at half a million plus (that'd be over a million in UK!) a few minutes out of town Big house, several; large TVs, three vehicles etc. and has some 'art work'; so is always looking for a house sitter when away!

Reply to
terry

The "reduced premium" isn't a problem for me Dave, simply a bonus - But I do want a working alarm system without the hassle of me having to maintain it.

Well aware of that in both situations.

That's where hopefully, the noise of the alarm disturbs the resident curtain twitcher and she calls the police if there is something suspicious.

We always do that anyway - we even use the internal sounder when working upstairs to tell us when external doors are opened. What's the point of spending several hundred pounds having the system fitted if you don't use it!

As for the T&Cs of the insurance company, well with company I used (and have done now for many years) and level of cover that I pay for - as long as an alarm is fitted and maintained professionally and keep all the receipts, there is no problem.

But to repeat, reduce the number of false alarms and the police (and neighbours) will be more likely to take action when it is needed - and that

*IS* a problem with many cheap, DIY fitted alarms systems bought off the shelf and little thought given to their set-up.

Cash

Reply to
Cash

Would it come under planning in the average house that wasn't listed? Any more than a front door?

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Reply to
Cash

CPO who came to see us told us of a jeweller who went the whole steel door route.

The burglars went through the wall :(

Andy

Reply to
Andy Champ

Yes we do actually have one that I installed and maintain, we just don't tell the insurance company that we've got it.

SteveW

Reply to
Steve Walker

We've only had one false alarm in sixteen years with the system(s) that I fitted myself. We came very close to a second when I walked in at two in the morning, turned the light on and the bulb blew and tripped the breaker, so I couldn't see the keypad (the one I had then had a membrane keypad, so you couldn't work it by touch). Fortunately the hall/landing light is on the upstairs circuit and by keep pushing the kitchen door open, I could get just enough light from there to disarm it.

That alarm bit the dust when the electricity board replaced their equipment and the alarm panel mysteriously stopped working at the same time. The current one has LED illuminated keypads!

On the other hand, the elderly neighbour on one side had an intermittent fault that triggered it two or three times a week for two years (we soon started ignoring it) and another neighbour has one that triggers every month or so and has done for at least the last ten years (again we ignore it).

When I still lived at my parents a neighbour triggered his car alarm as he was getting into it every morning for three or four years - as he went out about an hour before I got up, I wasn't happy.

SteveW

Reply to
Steve Walker

But I have to ask at this point, how do they know it is properly maintained and monitored? They are more likely to come out and book you for a noise offence.

Even then, it depends if they can be arsed. Just why do we pay so much tax to employ these bastards?

Dave

Hang on, there was a knock on the door

Reply to
Dave

I agree. Numberplate chasing is much more of a certainty for them.

Dave

Reply to
Dave

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