My daughter (26, single) has had her rental house broken into in the past, and with her anxiety issues she has a hard time not worrying about it happening again. I’d like to get some kind of home security system to help her peace of mind.
I see places like Amazon have home installed systems where you buy cameras, etc. and they have an app that lets you know on your phone if there’s an intruder. Then there are the well advertised systems like ADT where they do the monitoring. Oh, and if it makes a difference, she has a midsized-large dog.
Anyone have any experience with these and advice of systems to get or systems to avoid?
I bought a Simplisafe setup when we purchased our house a few years back.
Simple, self installation, pretty inexpensive, and does the normal monitoring w a dispatch center. It had tiers of pricing, can be very cheap for the basics, and now has cameras to go along w all the other entry detection monitors.
I’d still recommend it, it scores well on review sites, and it’s easy to break down and reinstall if she moves.
Our last house we had ADT and, well fuck them for reasons I won’t get into here.
This house we set up Simplisafe and it works pretty well. We have one faulty glass break sensor that we keep forgetting to complain about but other than that everything has worked pretty painlessly, and easy to set up.
I also use a Simplisafe. Easy to install and get going. Monitoring service isn’t super expensive, and there’s no contracts or anything. You can find a deal on a system on Woot fairly often.
Our home has the ADT setup with monitoring and all. No complaints on my end, been a customer since 2000 and moved once.
My mom’s new place I set up with Simplisafe with the basic/lowest monitoring tier and it’s worked really well for her. I set up their camera as well, and can check in on her via their app on smartphone.
I suggest buying a pack of decals and putting them on the windows and leaving it at that. Would-be burglars will see them and move on to a lower-hanging fruit.
Also install a set of timers to keep the lights on when you’re on vacation. Modern smart outlets are perfect for this, and they let you go “Alexa, turn on the wall lights” to boot!
Of course if she lives in a serious high-crime area then sure, shell out for a system. But otherwise, a simple deterrent goes a long way.
I rent my apartment. It comes with ADT security, which the landlord maintains to reduce his mortgage insurance. I’ve never had a positive interaction with them. Thumbs down.
My key complaints come down to questions of feedback. What does “Alert 13” mean? Why isn’t there an option to disable having the system start beeping every 4 hours when a battery goes bad? What is the difference between “off” and “disabled”? Why do some input codes require going through the exact routine 3 times before they take?
I always see this mentioned and it seems like dumb advice to me. This only matters if someone is spending considerable time casing your house to learn your schedule across the course of several days. If your light is on at 3am they have no idea if it’s because 1) You aren’t home and left it on, 2) you are home but asleep and left a light on, or 3) you are home and awake.
Every time a house I have owned has been broken into (or someone’s house that I knew had been broken into) it was an obvious case of a drive through the neighborhood looking for easy targets, and thus the fact that your light is off at 3am isn’t any different than your light being off at 10pm.
It seems to me best to just leave lights on and forgo the timers.
You could just leave them on 24/7, but that wastes electricity. That’s the only reason not to do it. I guess less of a blocker with LED bulbs these days.
Nobody’s “casing” your house. They’re driving by looking for likely targets. If the lights are on, they’re less likely to pick yours. It’s just another deterrent.
It’s because they’re looking for an easy target that if they go by a house at night with lights on they’re likely to pass. The advice I was given by a police officer was to have a dog. Thieves do not like dealing with dogs at all.
Anything that sets off an alarm before they get in is good. The cameras only give you something to react to after they’re in but a dummy camera installed outside might do the same thing. aka discourage them, but that’s after they decide to approach. Lights on, anything that makes them think someone is home and up usually keeps them stopping in the first place.
Remember last year or maybe the year before they had that picture of a thief getting real close to the camera and looking into it so they caught the guy… great for them. I’d rather him not be in the house in the first place.
The other things she can do, don’t tell people she’s leaving. No seriously, don’t post that shit on Facebook. Everyone always biting their nails about some random stranger breaking into the house but sometimes it’s someone you know, they know someone you know so they weren’t looking for an opportunity so much as already knew what they wanted and someone told them you’d be an easy target… maybe not explicitly but more like hey so and so went to vegas this weekend… not hard to find you.
Now I use cloud cameras to keep an eye on the things while I am out of town, including the pets. I have someone come by every couple of days, and I worry about fires and pipes bursting, something like that way more than I do thieves.
A good lock, deadbolt, some timed lights, maybe a dummy camera or something on the door that is or makes it look like there’s a camera there, motion lights on the garage our outside might not discourage them but it brings visibility and attention to an otherwise dark area… and then of course a couple cameras inside help for a lot of reason but discouraging thieves 70-80% of the time is way better than getting a picture of one in progress.
I’ve not heard good things about the active alarm companies. I have considered some small devices that set off alarms because that might set them of running too.
I really do think decals on the windows and timed lights are the way to go, unless you live in a high risk area. If you do, getting a real system is probably worth the trouble. But I can’t recommend one as I don’t use one myself.
That’s my point, no one is casing your house, they are looking for quick and easy targets, so leaving a couple of lights on in the front of your house is better than them turning it off (timer or no). If they turn off at 3am but potential burglers come through the neighborhood at 4am it doesn’t matter that you had them on a timer, your house is now higher up on the list than it would have been at 3am.
Not sure if you mean wasted electricity from the cost perspective, but our front room we leave on has 4 15W energy efficient bulbs. At 12 cents per KWh we are talking about pennies a day, $3-5 a month.
We are agreeing then. Maybe I phrased things confusingly but my point was not to bother with light timers and just leave your lights on. They won’t know if they are on because you are home and awake or if they are on because you left town, and you will get pushed down on their easy to hit list. Putting them on the timer just means if they go by your house at the right time they may think you aren’t home.
Our house was broken into during the day last year while my wife was home. They knocked on the door and when no one answered (my wife was busy in the other room and didn’t make it to the door quickly enough). They walked around back, threw a garden stone through our sliding glass door and ran when they saw my wife yelling at them.
Cops said that a lot of times criminals will knock on the door to see if someone is home before they break in (at least for daylight ones). The ring means that 1) they will know that they have been noticed (on camera no less) and 2) they don’t know if you actually aren’t home or are just too lazy to answer the door. Either way it’s a pretty good deterrent.
My wife definitely feels safer having the ring, it was our first purchase the day after the break in.
A lot of time I see people talking about timers they are talking about making it seem like someone is home, because lights are turning on and off throughout the night. So I guess I misunderstood your reasoning and thought you were thinking of timers along those lines.
Thanks for all the feedback. I think I will get an alarm system for her peace of mind as much as anything. The house she just moved out of, someone broke in recently (she had moved into her new place, but had overlapping leases from Nov to end of December so was still moving stuff) and they really trashed the place. As in, pulled pictures off the walls and threw them on the floor, took things from one room and threw them all over another room, pulled drawers out of dressers and dumped stuff all over the floor, it looks like the intent was to simply trash the house. The only thing taken was a lawn mower still in the box, which is bizarre. We suspect, actually, an old boyfriend that she was on and off with for a few years. We know him well, went to dinners with him, know his family, and his main issue is he is a real narcissist. He would verbally abuse my daughter, though it was well intended (a couple of years ago she was hanging out with some people who she shouldn’t and had some substance issues - all in the past now, after some real work on her part) - but it was still unacceptable. He would call me and tell me to tell her he loved her, and I’d tell him as long as you call her the names you call her, you’re not good for her. However, he never put a finger on her. And this seems WAY over the top for him. He’s got a job, in spite of his outburts verbally he’s never touched her, he would leave the house before doing that. And it seems very unlikely he would wait until 3 am (or whenever) find a way to break in (he did not have a house key, none of the doors were open, can’t see how the person broke in to be honest but they went out the back door because it was unlocked, even though I’d locked it last time anyone was in the house moving stuff) and do this. I know if you’re reading this you’re thinking, hey you never know a guy like that! But he and my daughter have actually been back to being friends in the last few months, even though she made it clear it just friends. Still - for some reason this feels personal, and even my daughter has suspicions. Oh, and this guy does not do drugs, very anti-drug, and only has an occasional beer.
BUT - she would be much more comfortable with a real alarm system in the new house. Even with her dog (mix German Shepherd/Gran Pyrenees) though he stays in a crate when she’s at work or away from the house. Wirecutter picked the Livewatch system, which is a little more per month but appears to be less up front. I may just call them and get it set up.
One question I have though, I assume if a dog is moving around and you have motion detection, no way for it to know that’s the dog and not an intruder.
