USVI-On-Line

Does anyone have any advice to share about home security monitoring? Feel free to PM me if you don't want to share publicly.

Sometime between Sunday night and Tuesday night, someone tried to break into our home. I don't know if the dogs scared them off, or I started moving around (incurable insomniac), or if they were testing to see if our security system worked.

We bought this home in April 2010. The security system (DFT) was already installed but we never activated it. It includes interior motion detectors and with our three young adults coming and going all day and night, we thought it too much trouble. We thought it could be turned on instantaneously, when we called them after the police were at the house on Wednesday, but apparently we have to wait for an appointment. I have two companies coming, thus far. Would love to hear your experience with various companies and systems.

Yes, we've already beefed up lighting and locks, and replaced the window broken (over a doorknob type lock) with plexiglass.

I had someone "visiting" my shed uninvited, what I found to work well is a simple Hi decibel door alarm, they get scared and run! cheap and effective. Put them at any entry points.

That being said... trying to get into my home is a whole different story, Id use a Mossberg 500 tactical cruiser ,

A nice comfy chair and the Mossberg would serve you better.

Good luck!

Working of the slide of a pump shot gun will make most crooks wet their pants. I like a hand gun with a large capacity mags as a back up.

Well...those ideas would be great if we had heard the breaking glass, but we didn't. I'm looking for something to make alot of noise and call the police.
There was a burglary in this house, a couple of years before we bought it, so I guess we should have realized this was a possibility! We were used to living waayyy out in the country, where nothing "interesting" happened.

So sorry Minde. That must be really scary.

I don't have anything to offer at all, but good luck!

I also have the high decible door alarms, but my Rotties are the best deterant. When I first moved into my house years ago somebody tried to come in during the night twice. The first time my GSD damn near went thru the sliding glass door, the second time the guy ran in to my backyard when he heard my Rottie rumble, Tyson ended up tagging the guy pretty good, 106 stitches good. Have not had a problem in 20 years since. Laura

A dog is a pretty good security system.

Both my house I'm in now and the house I was in before had security monitoring. Here I have door alerts, motion detectors and glass breakage on the back of the house. My house came hardwired with the system, but I did have to pick a company. When I moved here we had Brinks, which got purchased by ADT. I had ADT at my old house, too. They are great, but they are a little pricy and their system is proprietary (meaning that if you want to go to a new service you need all new equipment.)

After a lot of research, I decided to go with a local company here in Nashville. However, their website says they do nationwide monitoring, so they might be worth looking into. I LOVE them. www.adssecurity.com

If you can find a good reputable local company, that's what I would do. It gives me more piece of mind knowing someone who knows my neighborhood is monitoring my house.