My best home defense during work hours is Kinniadh MacAlpin (we call him Kenny, except when he is trouble), the 105 lb American Akita. If my wife or I have formally introduced you to Kenny, you are golden. But God help the thief that lets himself inside uninvited. Kenny will give about 3 to 5 warning yelps to an interloper letting him know he needs to move on. If a thief should insist on either picking or busting his way inside, then Kenny would actually stop barking and begin hunting the bad guy. They were bred as BEAR hunting dogs and fear no animal, period, on two legs or four. When we go out of town, Kenny stays at his favorite pet hotel instead of at the house. BUT, I had a sign made up that I put by the front and back door with an image of an Akita that reads, " If the dog isn't barking, he has already found you..."
yupididit wrote:
You don't get the point of the dog as a deterrence, it's not that the dog is out the house when it happens (refer to your last sentence).
In my experience, burglars generally aren't that organized - they aren't casing places beforehand, they just go out during the day looking for houses where no one's home. If they knock on the door and someone answers or a dog barks, they move on to find easier pickings.
In reply to stuart in mn:
Here, they watch your house.
I also have a nosey ass neighbor name Bob. He's retired and doesn't have a hobby. He knows everything about our cul-de-sac. Cant get E36 M3 pass him.
I am sorry to hear your place was broken into. I am glad you werent home at the time.
I don't have much useful to add.. But I am fascinated by low tech solutions like the security signs I found in my garage, or high resolution infrared Game cameras. Or signs that say.. "there is nothing in this house worth dying for".
And I have always imagined a security/deterrent system that played sounds through an amp and low profile speakers.
Sounds like doggy toenails on wood floors, and barking dogs and shotguns being cocked or fired. All triggered in stages, such as perimeter motion sensors for the barking, etc.
My house was broken into during the day about a week after we got back from out honeymoon. Both dogs were locked in their pins in the kitchen. A neighbor called and said the dogs were running through the neighborhood. I got home and found both dogs in a neighbors yard. Our aggressive chow mix had been kicked hard in the ribs, she was really in pain. The lovable lab mix wasn't hurt. I can only assume they were making too much noise and whoever broke in tried to let them out to shut them up and our chow mix went after them. The only thing they got was some of my wife's jewellery she left on the dresser. I'm pretty sure I can thank the dogs for us not getting cleaned out.
Somehow they got the garage door open. I didn't lock the interior door coming into the garage.
Woot.com is a clearance daily sale site for Amazon and they have various camera and DVR setups on sale about once a month. Some are pretty good bargains, and worth keeping an eye on.
For when you are home, and for the door you don't exit through last the old school "apartment bar" is tough to beat. Pretty much a bracelet for the door and another for the floor a couple of feet in with a bar that locks between them. No kicking in a door with one of those.
That signs for security monitoring are pretty effective, with or without the system. Window sensors, particularly glass breakage ones, back up the sign to the more attentive thief.
Several places sell 12v battery powered motion sensing lights for sheds or the like. One of those plus any car noise maker, horn, siren, buzzer, or air blast mounted inside and aimed at the door gives you a security alarm. Throw a key switch on the outside or a wireless remote on it and you can avoid listening to it when you get home.
We are trying out a camera system called Arlo. I think the wife found it on amazon. It is basically two wireless cameras that work with your home wifi. No dvr and you can set it up to notify you on your phone when a motion sensor triggers it. Or if you don't want that notification you can just sort through the saved videos later to find something your looking for. We have ours set for 30 second videos and see get about 5 days worth before we have to purge. But our views catch our dogs and cars on the street too so it's about 150 videos a day.
It's not perfect. Obvious flaws are you need a power back up for your router and if you are on phone or cable based Internet that service is disrupt able for thrives if the lines are accessible. But for the money and as a supplement to an alarm system, there is some peace of mind that you will likely have some evidence if you are robbed.
