is your burglar alarm on at night?

[vannah]

And if so, what exactly is your plan of action if it goes off - assuming there is an intruder in your house. Do you run down to switch it off - worrying about waking the whole street up in case its gone off accidently - and risk bumping into the intruder?

Or do you wait in your bedrooms upstairs till hopefully burglar buggers off?

Sorry, Im just completely confused as to how best to use the night setting - we only have controls downstairs. At the moment we dont have it on at night. We have bolts on the bedroom doors which I saw recommended on videojug - bolt and call the police if you hear an intruder in the night. But what about kids in various rooms?

We have good window locks on our windows but no double glazing. Bolts on front/back door and other security precautions, but who knows what method a burglar might use to get in.

What do you do at home re security?
thankyou

[dearprudence]

We always put the alarm on at night. We have a lot of power cuts so it does sometimes go off at night.

I like the idea of having a bolt on the door. Sometimes DH is away, and if there was an intruder I could get DS into my room and lock us in.

When DH is here, he would be delighted to deal with any intruders.

I wouldn't keep a weapon in the bedroom though. I do keep a torch (because of our regular power cuts) which just happens to be a large, heavy one. And DS likes to practice golf in his bedroom with practice balls, so we have a couple of small clubs lying around.

[ilove]

Yes ours is. We have two baseball bats...one at the side of the bed and the other at the foot of the next flight of stairs up...

[Matchingcardiganandtop]

Bolts sounds like a good idea. This house has been burgled in the past and we are a sitting target. Middle of nowhere with a drive off the road perfect for a van to drive up and not be seen from the road.

We also have no mobile coverage where we are so if our phonelines were cut we would have no access to the outside world.

In my old house we had latches on every door so that if someone broke in they would be trapped in one room for a while and would have to make a lot of noise to get out. They were also handy during the day to keep dd to certain rooms.

This thready has got me all panicky

[MmeLindt]

We have it on at night, it has gone off a couple of times but it is normally followed by the loud wail of whichever child has inadvertently set it off.

I don't have any kind of weapon (save a small fluffy dog who would be of no help whatsoever) but might get the hairspray out. Good idea that.

Our house has been burgled twice during the day and once at night, when the previous renters were still here so we feel much safer with the alarm on.

[Matchingcardiganandtop]

We have cats so they would set off the alarm. We put it on when we go out we just have to put the cats out and the dog in the bootroom.

[dearprudence]

It's my DS who plays golf in the bedroom, not by DH . Mainly uses plastic practice balls for chipping, but sometimes real balls for putting.

As I say, I would only have stuff lying around that would ordinarily be there. Nothing that could be construed as being intended as a weapon.

[notsotinybaba]

We always have the alarm on overnight. Got burgled at night when I was a child. None of us woke up but they took everything from the ground floor of the house, even ate an apple and left the core on the floor. Scared the sh**e of me.

We don't have an action plan, but when it has gone off in the past, DH has run downstairs to turn it off. Think the site of him charging down the stairs in his pants would be enough to scare anyone!!!

Matching - we have cats but you can get motion sensors that are adapted for pets (work great generally but ours set off the alarm if they try to get behind the blinds.......)

[vannah]

thanks for these replies, just read them all...seems we neednt worry about our neighbours so much and just have it on then...

[ShirleyKnott]

GOD where the fuck do you lot LIVE?

[mumhadenough]

I have my alarm on at night as we were burgled whilst in our beds about three years ago.

Like jajas I'm the daft arse who runs down the stairs in the middle of the night when the alarm goes off. It has only happened once or twice and it was the cat banging the blinds off the window sensors.

I've never considered that there might be someone in the house, would always just think that if it went off then any would be intruder would run away. Might need to rethink that tactic and kick dh out of bed in future!

[ShirleyKnott]

god its liek the bronx
we leave our cars opene here

[Milliways]

No, we leave our German Shepherd "on" at night

With a cat & dog, they would be forever setting it off. We have to shut them in the kitchen before setting ours.

[CremeDeMenthe]

Ours is on. Am more bothered about nighttime intruders than daytime burglars tbh.

Our plan is:
If security light has come on at back of house, it may be an intruder, so grab phone & DCs and wait upstairs.
If light not on, run downstairs in the nuddy to turn off alarm before the neighbours get too pissed off. Sometimes large spiders walk over the sensors apparently.
Our bedroom is used for baseball practice.

[MaggieW]

Ours is on, and has gone off once, which resulted in DH pushing me down the stairs in front of him to see what was going on!! From what the security company gathered from what they could tell from the system afterwards, they concluded that someone had been looking through our back french doors and the movement set it off. We have a junior baseball bat by the side of the bed, but frankly think that the sight of me in my nightwear would be enough to have a burglar fleeing and then suing us for emotional distress.