Last night I was at my mother-in-law's house for Easter weekend. At 1:45 AM, I get a call on my cell phone from ADT, my alarm monitoring company. They tell me that the interior motion detector has triggered the alarm, and they ask if they should call the police.
I say "yes" of course, since I am 200 miles away and the house should be empty. I hang up and tell the wife what's going on and try to think of what to do next, and what might be going on. A few minutes later, I get a call back from ADT telling me that the Houston Police Department has refused to answer the call because my alarm permit expired! Now it's time to panic! I call HPD myself, and get the same response. I beg, and mention that I never got any sort of bill from them. They basically tell me to go to hell.
So I jump in my truck and cover the 200 miles in the driving rain in 2 hours 45 minutes. While on the road, I manage to get our local constable office on the phone, and they agree to go check it out. He calls me back and says the alarm is going off, but he can't see any sign of entry.
When I get to the house, I can see that someone tried to come in a back door, but the alarm went off before they even got the door fully opened. Must have scared them off. ADT obviously has the zones messed up, as I don't see how the interior motion detector could have triggered this alarm.
Morals of this story/lessons learned are:
1. Make sure your alarm permit is still valid. Houston, for example, will not remind you when yours expires. As the office told me, "you don't get a letter when your driver's license expires, do you?".
2. Make sure all of the folks on your call list are still good. My mother's name was high on my list, but she passed away last month...
3. If you have a constable or some other sort of neighborhood patrol, put their name and number on your alarm call list if you can.
I got lucky this time, but am now on a mission to beef up my defense system for when I am not around.
Learn from me. You can't imagine the feeling of driving 200 miles at 90 MPH in the rain in the dark, wondering who is rummaging through your house while the cops are sitting at the Dunkin' Donuts, refusing to even drive by...
I say "yes" of course, since I am 200 miles away and the house should be empty. I hang up and tell the wife what's going on and try to think of what to do next, and what might be going on. A few minutes later, I get a call back from ADT telling me that the Houston Police Department has refused to answer the call because my alarm permit expired! Now it's time to panic! I call HPD myself, and get the same response. I beg, and mention that I never got any sort of bill from them. They basically tell me to go to hell.
So I jump in my truck and cover the 200 miles in the driving rain in 2 hours 45 minutes. While on the road, I manage to get our local constable office on the phone, and they agree to go check it out. He calls me back and says the alarm is going off, but he can't see any sign of entry.
When I get to the house, I can see that someone tried to come in a back door, but the alarm went off before they even got the door fully opened. Must have scared them off. ADT obviously has the zones messed up, as I don't see how the interior motion detector could have triggered this alarm.
Morals of this story/lessons learned are:
1. Make sure your alarm permit is still valid. Houston, for example, will not remind you when yours expires. As the office told me, "you don't get a letter when your driver's license expires, do you?".
2. Make sure all of the folks on your call list are still good. My mother's name was high on my list, but she passed away last month...
3. If you have a constable or some other sort of neighborhood patrol, put their name and number on your alarm call list if you can.
I got lucky this time, but am now on a mission to beef up my defense system for when I am not around.
Learn from me. You can't imagine the feeling of driving 200 miles at 90 MPH in the rain in the dark, wondering who is rummaging through your house while the cops are sitting at the Dunkin' Donuts, refusing to even drive by...
