s/o: Rec your alarm company
MrsBeckO
member
Taytee's response below just gave me an "aha moment". We need an alarm.
I do quickly scan the house for anything fishy if Camy and I come home after dark. When I'm giving Camy her bedtime bath, I wait to put her in until I can shut the water off, because the water drowning out all household noise freaks me the F out.. I need to be able to hear if a door opens or a window breaks. I am OCD about checking locks on all the doors before going to bed... and the list goes on.
Perhaps I need a therapist, not just an alarm, but an alarm seems like a good place to start.
Can anyone rec their co?
Sidenote: DH is gonna freak when I tell him I want one. Why? When I was huge PG, some kid came door to door selling alarms and had quite the "buy now! best deal ever! don't miss out!"spiel. DH signed on the dotted line while I was giving him death stares (that he clearly wasn't picking up on) because I thought we should talk about it first. I didn't want to make a scene so I thought we'd let this kid do his thing, DH would sign up for it, then when sales-kid left I could have a come to Jesus talk with DH about making impulsive decisions. So I leave the room, DH says bye to sales-kid and not 20 minutes later there's a knock at the door. At 830 at night... men wielding drills were about to install the damn alarm!!! I flipped out, started crying (I was huge PG, remember) and made everyone leave. Arguing ensued.... I won the alarm debate. And now, a mere 6 months later, I want an alarm. Funny story, eh?
Re: s/o: Rec your alarm company
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We use brinks. We don't have a landline but have a phone through TW so we pay a bit more so we could keep that and use that but we still only pay 35$. It's auto billed to a credit card and I think that gave up an additional % off when we had it installed.
I love having it and it makes me feel so much better even when he's here. DH travels for work and I get even less sleep when he gone. Just knowing I have it I sleep sooo much better. I don't sweat the little noises and DH feels better knowing that it's here when he's not (not that he would wake up if here).
I love, love, my company! Sloan Security. It is 129 a year and they have the same service as Brinks/etc. I think they give us more calls than they did especially when we had the battery operated system. They would call to let us know that a battery had died or was about to die.
GuaveGirl used them for her new house so page her and she can give you a rec on them as well. I get a month free if you sign up but the $10 less is worth a lot more in piece of mind. Let me know if you want more details.
Married and it feels so good!
We've got Brinks/Broadview and I'm kind of "eh" on them. They do the job just fine, they call when our alarm has been set off accidently, but I think their customer service kind of sucks. The installer made a mistake when he was installing our system that caused our alarm to go off at 3am the first night we had it. Mind you, this was 2 days after our scary break-in attempt, so it was NOT a good thing to go through. When we called Brinks they tried to tell us it would be two days to get it fixed, it took me fighting with a manager to get next day service.
We also had an issue where our alarm went off on Thanksgiving day, we were out of town, and Brinks let us down (well, Brinks blamed APD, APD blamed Brinks). Basically we spent two hours with no idea what the cops found (if anything) when they came to our house, and the Brinks reps I spoke to were NOT helpful or sympathetic.
So that said, I'd recommend using another company, because to me customer service is very important when it comes to an alarm company. I do HIGHLY recommend getting a system though, I feel so much more secure having that sign in the yard and the alarms in place. Added bonus- when you have a toddler, the door chimes when a door is opened (most systems do this, I think) are VERY handy. DS has tried to escape into the garage a few times and it's reassuring that I know the second he opens a door.
The officer who responded to our 911 call recommended Sloan(e?).
(read it. you know you want to.)
anderson . september 2008
vivian . february 2010
mabel . august 2012
your sidenote is the same exact thing that happend to us a few months ago. sales guy came, we signed up, his brother came 30 minutes later (at 9 pm!) to install. the next day we cancelled and they came and got their stuff.
to answer your question though, we eventually signed up with Ranger (same as Guardian) because they had pre-wired out house. The covered all the doors and windows. I think we're paying around $35/month without the fire system. so far we've been happy with their service.
We have ADT. There's a discount through USAA but we didn't get it because of who DH signed up with. I've never had to call their CS but our alarm has gone off once (our fault) and the call went fine. Our fire alarm got tripped last Christmas and we couldn't get to the phones in time and the fire dept came out. Good to know your first false alarm is free...
I remember the story about the alarm people. I wouldn't feel bad about that. The whole situation was weird/hinky. Tell him you want professionals that make you feel safe!
Married and it feels so good!
if you want to go another (cheap) route, you could install things on your doors/windows - they make noise when someone tries to open them.
something like this:
https://www.homesecuritystore.com/c-74-contacts-door-windows.aspx
and you can buy alarm signs on ebay and stick hem in your front yard/on your windows.
just some suggestions!