The Gun Counter

OK, one more story from the Alaska cruise. This was related by a lady at our dinner table (for those who don't know, the cruise line will sit you with other folks for dinner, we were lucky and had a GREAT table).

The lady in question lives in Mass., near the New Hampshire border. One night at about 2 AM her home alarm system went off. Her alarm only goes off if someone has opened one of her doors or windows. Since she lives in the boonies, she has a gun for home defense (for which she jumped thru all the hoops required by Mass.). She went to her state-approved safe, took her state-approved gun from it (unloaded as required by the state), loaded it, and called 911 (all the time wondering why her alarm company didn't call HER). She informed the dispatcher that she was in her bedroom with her gun, at which point the dispatcher demanded that she unload the gun and put it down (she refused to do so until she saw the flashing lights in the driveway). The responding officer came in and demanded to see her pistol permit before searching for a would-be intruder (apparently hassling law-abiding gun owners is safer than searching their home for a criminal). Only after determining that her gun was in fact legal (and admonishing her for owning it in the first place) did they search her home and find no evidence of entry and/or intruder.

The upshot was that she'd recently changed internet service providers, which basically disconnected her from her alarm service so it showed up as not having been armed for the last few weeks. The alarm service decided to "check" her system by sending a signal to trigger the alarm. Did I mention that this was at 2:00 in the bloody morning????

And let me guess, it was Broadview security (formerly known as Brinks home security)?

My burgler alarm has four feet, teeth, and answers to the name "Nikki".....

Seriously though, I installed burglar and fire alamrs for several years while in college. When I started(1981), only a few stores had direct monitoring to the local police station. Central station monitoring was just getting started. We installed tape dialers in most homes for the first year or two.

Since I live in a subdivision and know my neighbors fairly well, I would choose local alarm only if I install, which I may do shortly. And I'll install the system myself.

308Mike wrote:And let me guess, it was Broadview security (formerly known as Brinks home security)?

IIRC it was the other big company with a three-letter name, but I'm really not sure.

My self defense system is called Oz , and his back up is Tom with a 12 gage.
And government is a bad idea really bad , the eastern US is really loosing it, really this just a normal story of the current nonsense.

The alarm service decided to "check" her system by sending a signal to trigger the alarm . . . at 2:00 in the bloody morning

If we were able to write the contracts with the thieving alarm companies ourselves this would be a contract violation with a liquidated damages clause sufficient to put her child through college, but noooo, we get these take-them or leave them contracts and no one ever thinks to obligate the alarm company to only do tests after notice and during normal retail business hours.