24 hour security

[CameronBlue]

Question to the board: Please share your experience with the 24-hour security services e.g. ADT, CPI, Brinks etc. Since the murder of Abhijit Mahato I've been concerned about the safety of my tenants most of whom are Duke grad students (along with one former NYC options trader who was recently "Bernie Madoffed."). Please feel free to email me privately if you're concerned about posting negatively in a public forum.

Thanks
CB

[allenmurray]

Question to the board: Please share your experience with the 24-hour security services e.g. ADT, CPI, Brinks etc. Since the murder of Abhijit Mahato I've been concerned about the safety of my tenants most of whom are Duke grad students (along with one former NYC options trader who was recently "Bernie Madoffed."). Please feel free to email me privately if you're concerned about posting negatively in a public forum.

Thanks
CB

My mother's home was broken into a while back. The Police department did a really nice job - sending an officer out a few days later on a scheduled appointment to talk with her (and me) about how to make her home more secure. He talked about security systems, and talked about their benefits (obviously he didn't recommend any one particular system, which would have been inappropriate). I do rememer him saying very clearly that 90% of what anybody can do to keep their home and themselves safe has to do more with common sense and awareness than with security systems. His other comment about security systems was to KISS (keep it simple, stupid). He related that the more complicated a system is to use the more likley someone is to not use it correclty and/or "skip it just this once". I thought that a very good observation.

[DukeUsul]

We have CPI. We've never had an incident. We've had several false alarms - like when my parents were here, woke up before us, and tried to open the back door to go out to the porch for a morning paper and coffee. The back door is not on a 30-second delay like the front. It immediately set off the alarm - I jumped out of bed and before I was down the stairs CPI already came over the intercom and was asking if there was an emergency. They also call me every 6 months and ask me if I want to test the system. So - we've been happy so far. Hopefully we never have to test it for real.

[alteran]

First of all, let me commend you on looking out for your tenants.

I'll second allen's remarks that the Durham police will come out to your house/buildings and give you a lot of simple, cost-effective things you can do to increase security and/or deter thieves.

You do NOT have to be a victim of crime for the police to do this.

If you live in a neighborhood watch community, join it. They have access to a lot of information pertinent to your community. Also, Durham has a series of listservs dedicated to crime in different sections of Durham. It is an excellent source of information about current break-ins, etc.

You can find which one applies to you and join here:

http://www.durhampolice.com/pac/

If you DO get a security system (like I did), there are two kinds of sensors-- motion sensors, and circuit sensors. Motion sensors are triggered by motion, and circuit sensors are triggered by someone opening a door or window (and breaking the circuit).

Circuit sensors are more about protecting your house when you are in it (you have to remember not to open your windows or doors when it is armed, obviously). Motion sensors are about protecting your house when you are away (unless you tend to sit really, really still).

Circuit sensors are individually cheaper, but you tend to need way more of them. Generally, you can find a few critical parts of your house to place a motion sensor where a person cannot really get anywhere without setting it off.

Control panels (that allow you to arm and deactivate the system) are the most expensive units-- but make sure you have enough. You want one next to every door you tend to use. If the system is inconvenient to use, you will tend not to use it.

I heartily recommend AlarmMan which is locally-owned (I think-- they certainly act like a local business in all the good ways). A lot of the big installers use an "installation = cheap, but you must sign an expensive 2-3 year agreement" pricing model. AlarmMan uses an "installation = expensive, but using the service is cheap" model. Our monthly fee is 18 bucks, and includes fire/smoke monitoring, which many services charge monthly fees to add.

I have considered turning off the monitoring and just using the alarm itself, as my primary concern is someone breaking in while I'm here. This may be particularly relevant since you have tenants. Each address in Durham gets 2 false calls per year, then they get fined for further calls.

Obviously, since you seem to have multiple units, you may have leverage in pricing if you decide to install.

Good luck. Please feel free to email me through the board if you have any questions.

[DukeUsul]

A third type of sensor is a glass break sensor. Your windows can have the circuit sensors on them, which will detect if they are opened. The glass break listens for the sound of glass breaking, since burglars may know that they can't move the window for fear of breaking the circuit. Whenever there's a loud noise in our house, you can see the light on the glass break sensor come on - it's comparing the sound to its signature of what breaking glass sounds like. They're pretty slick. CPI tested them with an audio recording of glass breaking and they seemed to work well.

[allenmurray]

Hire Patrick Davidson to stand at your front door. If he needs a break (which he won't - but he might have to go somewhere else for a few mintues to save the world) perhaps Vincent Ogabasse coudl relieve him. No one will break in. Ever.

[CameronBlue]

Thanks very much for going to the effort to respond guys and providing useful information. Greatly appreciated.

CB