To think burglar alarms are a waste of time

[MikeStand]

I have been listening to a neighbour's burglar alarm for 40 minutes now and feel it has more to do with the huge thunderstorm we have just had rather than a bunch of thieves. Do people think "goodness me I must phone the police" or do they just assume the alarm is faulty and sit rolling their eyes and tutting until it stops.......finally....I hope.

Mine is.i never set the fucker.

Tho was a Good Samaritan recently when my lovely but dotty alzheimers) neighbour but 1 had a total freakout when we had a powercut recently and her alarm went haywire

I don't think that people react to them going off. I do think that a burglar faced with a choice between a house with an alarm and the house next door without one is more likely to go next door. They're going to break into somewhere, and window locks alarms etc don't stop them, they just make robbing your house more hassle, and a softer target is usualy nearby.

Loads of them going off round here tonight thanks to a power cut (ruined my night out, pub wouldn't serve drinks as tills weren't working). Made me think, if I was a burglar, power cuts would be a great opportunity. (A police officer is bound to turn up on this thread and explain that I am very wrong about this and expose me as unfit to be a criminal mastermind. )

When we got broken into last year the police said it was better to get a dog than a burglar alarm as thieves rarely risk houses with dogs, so I did!

Think it depends where you are. An alarm went off last night, and a few of us in the village went outside to find out if the old lady in the property was ok. (She was sleeping blissfully through the racket!!)

Luckily it turned out to be a fault with the alarm.

Wouldn't be without mine. Goes straight to a monitoring station.

When I lived at home ours went off during the night and the burglar, who was downstairs rummaging, grabbed a bag and ran off into the night - it just happened that he'd grabbed a bag of my mum's marking that was going back to school the following day! The police found it abandoned in a neighbour's garden!

So whilst it didn't stop the house being broken into, it reduced the loss.

I always go and check if I hear a one of my close neighbours alarms going off,, and they do the same. We will usually end up in a little group checking around the property.

Alarms are only worth anything really if they're monitored - and even then, it's a bit hit and miss.

of course they work, they firstly act as a deterrent. If there is a big Banham Alarm bell outside a house, a burglar will think twice. Secondly if one chances his arm and it goes off the theory is he will flee rather than stick around robbing as it may be hooked up to a monitoring station. Mine is great, it does not go off during power cuts, it is hooked to a central monitoring station and provides me with the peace of mind I need as I would never hear anyone break in downstairs at night-time otherwise!

we have an alarm- i never used to set it and we were birgled last summer.

the burglars broke in through an upstairs window (locked) which was next to the alarm box.....

so -we have better window locks now, and we do set the alarm.

but - we have also changed our house insurance policy -they don't know we have an alarm so we don;t get a discount, but also they would have to pay up if we were burgled even if alarm was not on or malfunctioned. it's what the loss adjustor told me to do after the claim was turned down last time....

Edam I expect you're more of a criminal mastermind than you think. I know a couple of PC's and from what I've heard most run of the mill criminals aren't really blessed that way.

hermya - really? Gosh, maybe I'm in the wrong job! Mind you, I guess if they had any brains, they'd be able to make a good living by more conventional means...

Ruby, that sounds sad.

Has it made you peep out the window to make sure no one's loading up a van with stuff?

We had a spate of burglaries on our estate a couple of years ago and all the houses who were targetted were the ones without alarms.

In general if an alarm goes of near us then at least some of the neighbours will wonder out to have a look. Once when ours went off by accident (DD had left back door open and it was swinging about in the breeze!) one neighbour actually climbed over the fence to investigate.

I agree with someone earlier who said that if it goes off when a burglar breaks in it is more likely to make them hurry rather than hang around for a good rummage. Ours makes one hell of a racket.

we have an alarm but I've never set the thing since we moved in. Wouldn't even know what the code was! I hear other people's going off and just ignore them.

we have a yappy jack russell, no ned for anything more

I talked to a big time burglar at work some years ago and he said that if would be burglars see the ADT box on a building, they don't touch it. Sadly, mine is covered by ADT but has the original installers box on the walls...I had to have it installed after I was burgled or no insurance company would cover me.