House alarm systems & cats

[valrhona]

We are (I am) considering installing an alarm system in our home (sensor type, which then rings police etc if there's a problem)

Dh The Font of All Wisdom says this will cause untold problems as the cats will set it off all the time when we are out.

I'm reasonably certain security systems must be able to cope with pets. Any advice? Did anyone have any problems?

[moggle]

We had one of the fit it yourself Yale alarm sets with a yellow round siren (bit that goes on the house). Then when we got cats we bought the 'pet friendly' infrared detectors and swapped them out. They worked fine and never went off due to the cats. But make sure you don't put them somewhere your cat can climb right up to, eg by a bookshelf, as then they may make a big enough shap on the sensor to set it off.
Sounds like you are getting a more expensive type that'll be fitted by a company, but I'm sure they'll have a similar option. Alternatively you can just have door and window alarms and forget the movements sensors, I guess.

[shaska]

A lot of systems can be set to trigger only at movements of a certain size, so you just set the trigger at a greater threshold than cat size. Should be fine, just talk to the installer.

[Germgirl]

We have an alarm & a cat. It's meant to be pet friendly but my feline idiot manages to set it off every couple of months or so. The alarm man said it can't be adjusted t be any less sensitive and the next step is to turn off the hallway sensor (cat sets the alarm off by jumping onto the windowsill of the window halfway up the stairs we think). I don't really want to do that as the hall sensor is the one that covers the front door.
So yes, you can have an alarm but make sure the sensors are carefully placed and the sensitivity is set properly.

[SageMist]

We have a quite old alarm, and the cat does set it off. So we've had to turn off detection in one room, so if we ever all go out, the cat either stays outside or gets shut in that single room.

[LastingLight]

Our cats rarely set off the alarm when they're inside, most of our sensors are pet sensors. They do however set off our beams outside despite the fact that the company who installed it said they wouldn't.

[Fluffycloudland77]

Dh put card over the sensor in the room we lock him in during the day so it doesn't go off.

[BaffledSomeMore]

The alarm company were able to set ours to copè with three cats roaming the house. Can't remember if they changed the sensors or not but we never had a problem in 7 years.

[UsedToBeAPaxmanFan]

A good alarm company ought to be able to sort this out.

Our house is alarmed in 3 zones. We shut the doors to one of the zones so the cats can't get in and then set the alarm so that the doors and windows are alarmed, plus zone 1. The cats can then freely roam in zones 2 and 3, which icludes the kitchen and cat flap.

We've been using this system for 8 years and the alarm has never been triggered by the cats.