In article
..com, Richard Russell scribeth thus
On Feb 15, 3:13*pm, Jethro_uk wrote:
Especially since if you have got one, but had a
break in when it was off (e.g. you were at home) they may not pay up.

We changed our house insurer in part because the old policy implied,
as you say, that if the alarm was not working *for any reason*
(whether forgetting to set it, or a hardware failure for example) they
might not pay up. That struck us as utterly ridiculous. Our new
insurer gives a discount for having an alarm



(so long as it is
professionally maintained)

What exactly do the professional maintainers do for the money?...

Other than perhaps change the power unit battery once every 10
years?....
--
Tony Sayer

In article , Peter Parry
scribeth thus
On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 21:43:49 -0000, "Toby Sleigh"
wrote:


A cunning plan indeed, but insurance companies are notorious for weasling
out on the slightest excuse, so my original question still remains
unanswered.
Are there any companies that will maintain a diy fitted burglar alarm.

Not that I have ever come across, and it would take a very silly
company to chose to do so.

As has already been pointed out it is usually a very bad idea to say
you have an alarm for insurance purposes unless it is a proper
monitored Redcare type, not the

noddy ADT type auto diallers which are
very simple to disable.


Tho GSM ones are a shade more difficult as long as U remember to top up
the SIM card;!....


--
Tony Sayer

In article , charles
scribeth thus
In article ,
Peter Parry wrote:
On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 21:43:49 -0000, "Toby Sleigh"
wrote:


A cunning plan indeed, but insurance companies are notorious for
weasling out on the slightest excuse, so my original question still
remains unanswered. Are there any companies that will maintain a diy
fitted burglar alarm.

Not that I have ever come across, and it would take a very silly
company to chose to do so.

As has already been pointed out it is usually a very bad idea to say
you have an alarm for insurance purposes unless it is a proper
monitored Redcare type, not the noddy ADT type auto diallers which are
very simple to disable.

Redcare monitoring cost a small fortune, and won't work if the phone line
is cut.


AIUI they do turn up if the line is cut, seen it happen and it wasn't me
cutting the line just Padraig in his digger;!....

--
Tony Sayer

In article om,
dennis@home scribeth thus
On 15/02/2013 23:21, Rod Speed wrote:



How do you propose to disable them ?

Cut the wire.


Particularly when they use the mobile phone system.


Even easier.
Jam the gsm control channel with a jamer off ebay.


Once again your know how re phone systems amazes us Den....
--
Tony Sayer

In message
,
harry writes
On Feb 16, 12:02*pm, Bill wrote:
In message , geoff
writes



At the rear of my house, I have a sufficient number to sound bombs
(sixteen quads) to make anyone just want to be somewhere else

Sweet :-)

You can never have enough sound bombs, they even manage to drown out my
tinatus!

Seriously making the burglar feel uncomfortable, by what ever method,
does seem the best way to go.



Or automatic lighting. With an inside buzzer linked in.

Automatic lighting with a buzzer?

The light illuminates their way, the buzzer tells them nobody is home

Have you EVER heard half a dozen sound bombs go off close to you?

The sound gets inside your head, it's unpleasant, you just don't want to
be there, it's not a comfortable place to be for the "recreational"
burglar

You go somewhere else to get your kicks


--
geoff

On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 10:21:07 +1100, "Rod Speed"
wrote:


"Peter Parry" wrote in message
.. .
On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 21:43:49 -0000, "Toby Sleigh"
wrote:

A cunning plan indeed, but insurance companies are notorious for weasling
out on the slightest excuse, so my original question still remains
unanswered.
Are there any companies that will maintain a diy fitted burglar alarm.

Not that I have ever come across, and it would take a very silly
company to chose to do so.

As has already been pointed out it is usually a very bad idea to say
you have an alarm for insurance purposes unless it is a proper
monitored Redcare type, not the noddy ADT type auto diallers which are
very simple to disable.

How do you propose to disable them ?

Easily, if you don't know how you will understand if I decline to
publicise the very simple method further.

Particularly when they use the mobile phone system.

Auto diallers generally don't, most are class B alarms.

Also bear in mind police forces do not, as a matter of policy, react
to bells only alarm as over 99% are false alarms. If a neighbour
phones the police and reports an alarm activation they will be
referred to the local council noise abetment unit. Only if they phone
and say the alarm has gone off and they can see someone loading your
belongings into a van might someone turn up, eventually.

That isnt what happened here. The cops showed up very
promptly and they certainly weren't told that anyone saw
anything being loaded into a van or into anything else either.

Read the ACPO policy. If you were fortunate enough to have someone
turn up count yourself lucky. There is no police response because
over 99% of bells only of alarms from Class B alarms are false, due to
operator error or poor quality installation.

"Andrew Gabriel" wrote in message
...
In article ,
SteveW writes:
On 15/02/2013 18:53, ARW wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,

And I have decent neighbours who wouldn't just ignore it.

And that is the key to a good alarm.

I think that it is probably the other way around. A decent alarm, that
doesn't regularly give false alarms, is likely to be checked by the
neighbours, whereas one that's always going off will be ignored.

Our next-door neighbours' alarm never normally goes off. On the one
occassion that it has recently, I checked for signs of entry. Before
they moved in, I just ignored it, because the property was unoccupied,
the alarm was faulty, yet the estate agent kept setting it! Similarly, I
always ignore the alarm on the opposite side of the road, but would
investigate any others going off.

If you have neighbours who come and check when the alarm goes off
(and pleased to say we all do here), you really want to make sure
you don't generate false alarms, as the goodwill very quickly
evaporates. After one false alarm, expect much slower response (if
any), and none after a second one. It will probably at least 2
years without false alarms to recover.

Didn't happen anything like that here. My next door
neighbour did go thru a period of quite a few false
alarms, and I was almost always the first to check that
it was false and not a real burglar. I never responded
any slower at all, and never ever ignored any alarm.

They did eventually get the installer to retweak the
system and that did fix the false alarms and we did
have at least two real burglars too, who didn't manage
to do any worse than damage the fly screen trying to
get in one time and leave an obvious outdoor chair
against the back fence getting over it another time.

Given that new alarm systems tend to generate false alarms
in the first few months, I generally suggest you wait for a few
months with no false alarms before you enable an external
sounder, and that includes having identified and fixed all
causes for false alarms.

That wont work with the returning burglars after
an alarm has been installed after the first burglary.

That way, you don't blow all the neighbourly
goodwill in the initial teething problems.

But may well see the house looted again before
you decide to connect the external sounder.

No thanks.

"Mrcheerful" wrote in message
...
Dave West wrote:
"larkim" wrote in message
...
On Friday, 15 February 2013 15:13:26 UTC, Jethro_uk wrote:
On Fri, 15 Feb 2013 15:08:11 +0000, Toby Sleigh wrote:

Snipped

IME any discount gained by having a burglar alarm is minimal. Best
say you haven't got one. Especially since if you have got one, but had a

break in when it was off (e.g. you were at home) they may not pay up.

Much as I'd hate to imagine either arriving home with the possessions
gone, or waking up in the night with an intruder around, I still
consider it sufficiently unlikely to occur that its not worth
spending £500-£1000 on (in addition to insurance!!)
Matt
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

So in 2013 with the supposedly new attitude by the authorities to
burglars, what is the best course of action on hearing someone
breaking in to your house downstairs ?

just a hundred or so can get you an alarm system. I figure every bit of
extra difficulty/visible deterrent help to make the burglars think twice.
If you are in you can know instantly if someone is in the house that
shouldn't be. Internal sounders are a must too, the disorienting effect
couple with the loss of hearing makes someone that shouldn't be there get
out quick.

I would have an alarm system before house insurance, but after decent
locks.

Yeah, me too, tho in my case a ****ing great dog between the house insurance
and decent locks. That reduces the need for an alarm system too. But there
will
still be times when you are out of the house and take the dog with you too.

Still need decent locks because I don’t like the idea of stupid kids
managing to get in without the dog noticing and getting eaten.
Very unlikely tho with a decent dog.

I also didn’t have a dog door to the backyard because I didn’t
like the risk of one of the neighbours kids ending up with a ball
over the fence and being stupid enough to get it when I was
out and the dog tearing out the door and savaging the kid.

"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Grimly Curmudgeon wrote:
On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 13:44:41 -0000, "Dave West"
wrote:

So in 2013 with the supposedly new attitude by the authorities to
burglars, what is the best course of action on hearing someone
breaking in to your house downstairs ?

Me?
Grab the fire-axe by the door and go down swinging.
**** the law, **** the thieves, they're not having any of my kit.

Your kit is more important than your liberty?

Some have a ****ing great knife handy.

Once you have killed the intruder, you put the knife in the corpse's
hand and claim that you had no choice but to kill it with the axe.

Not clear what happens when there are more than one and
one escapes and claims that they had no knife, unlikely that
they would be believed, but there is some risk of that obviously.

Bill wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Yeah, most dogs kick up one hell of a stink when someone
they don't know shows up but few will actually try to bite
them or kill them. One hell of a deterrent tho, one of my
neighbours who used to ask if he could borrow garden
tools looked like he was seriously considering turning
and running at times when he knocked on the big patio
door that's the main entrance door and had the ****ing
great alsatian hurl himself at the door. He gave up coming
around very quickly |-)

I've been bitten by 2 dogs, both were defending their owners, and their
own, territory.

I've only been bitten twice, one when I was a very young
kid and walked too close to one of the vans at a travelling
circus and didn't notice the dog chained up underneath it.

The other time was with the ****wit little foxy that was
my next door neighbour's dog, my fault, I managed to
startle it by accident.

I can assure people that they are a good deterrent!!

Yeah, I do the garage/yard sale run on Saturday and I
am amazed at how may of the garage/yard sale regulars
are very wary of any dog, even some of the dog owners.

The really annoying part was that one of them, a GSD, knew me well since
being a pup, yet when I invaded his territory without his owners
permission I was still warned off, with vigour!

I was a bit surprised at how well the son of a mate of mine
did when I got him to check on the dog's water when I was
away for a couple of weeks. I thought that he might have
had a problem getting in the house, but he didn't. The
dog did know him, but not very well at all.

The other, a Doberman, caught me twice on 2 separate occasions, on the 3rd
visit and, every one after, he just came up and gave me a lick and sat
down again!

Mine used to kick up one hell of a stink every time someone
he knew showed up, even if they did show up say 6 times in
one day for some reason. Never any problem with anyone
he saw I was happy to have around.

Eventually when he knew a visitor well enough he's still
kick up one hell of a stink as they showed up, but would
do what he always did to me, give me a bit a nip on the
cheek as a greeting. It was always very hard to predict
just when he'd start doing that with someone and they'd
get a hell of a fright the first time it happened, he was
****ing great dog, massive across the chest.

There again, somewhat topically, I lived around foxes for most of my early
life, up to about 16 yrs, and never got bitten.

Yeah, few dogs will bite you it you don't do something stupid.

One time I could hear the dog going completely bananas
about something, very characteristic noise. Turned out that
the neighbours kids had the patio door open just a tad and
were stinging him on the snout with thick rubber bands.
I put a stop to that.

Some days later one of the kids was sitting in one
of my deep arm chairs and the dog just went over
and bit him in the stomach, quite literally. The
poor kid nearly shat himself. Needless to say,
they didn't try that again |-)

"harry" wrote in message
...
On Feb 16, 8:39 am, charles wrote:
In article
,
harry wrote:









On Feb 15, 11:57 pm, "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:
In article ,
Peter Parry wrote:

It is invariably better to spend the money you would have wasted
on
alarms on better perimeter security including sound doors and
locks.

Very difficult to protect a window from a determined attack - unless
you're happy with bars or gates.

I'm always amused to see houses round here with multiple expensive
locks
on the front door but original sash windows...

Bungalows amuse me even more.
All the burglar has to do is go on the roof and lift a few tiles.
But a good dog cures most things.

at waht cost? After feeding and vet's bills, an alarm might be cheaper.

You don't feed the dog on pedigree chum.
You buy the big bags of dry dog food.

Still not that cheap with a big dog.

I don't like anything smaller than a blue heeler myself.

"harry" wrote in message
...
On Feb 16, 12:02 pm, Bill wrote:
In message , geoff
writes



At the rear of my house, I have a sufficient number to sound bombs
(sixteen quads) to make anyone just want to be somewhere else

Sweet :-)

You can never have enough sound bombs, they even manage to drown out my
tinatus!

Seriously making the burglar feel uncomfortable, by what ever method,
does seem the best way to go.



Or automatic lighting. With an inside buzzer linked in.

Not clear how viable that is at the front tho, you'd
likely get some kids revving you up deliberately.

One of my neighbours across the park/walkway that's
the same size as a normal house block has a flat at the
back of the house with a door onto the park/walkway.

Plenty of the kids thought it was a great idea to press
the bell and run off.

"harry" wrote in message
...
On Feb 16, 12:28 pm, Nightjar
wrote:
On 16/02/2013 12:13, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article ,
Nightjar wrote:
Most of the are druggys paying for their drug habits.

Possibly true in urban areas, but in rural and semi-rural areas the
main
risk is from professional thieves, who are prepared to travel great
distances to find rich pickings.

Professional thieves ain't going to travel great distances on spec.
More
likely target a place they know contains valuables.

Exactly why they will know what sort of burglar alarm is being used.

The vast majority of burglaries are on spec.

The vast majority happen in urban areas.

Colin Bignell

The go by the value of the car parked on the driveway.

Didn't happen that way here. I was still getting attempts
when the Golf was 30 years old. And have had only one
which wasn't a normal burglary attempt since it was
replaced with a brand new Getz.

In message , Rod Speed
writes

You don't feed the dog on pedigree chum.
You buy the big bags of dry dog food.

Still not that cheap with a big dog.

I don't like anything smaller than a blue heeler myself.


Hardly common on these shores ... unless they are being substituted for
horse meat


--
geoff

dennis@home wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Peter Parry wrote
Toby Sleigh wrote

A cunning plan indeed, but insurance companies are notorious for
weasling
out on the slightest excuse, so my original question still remains
unanswered.
Are there any companies that will maintain a diy fitted burglar alarm.

Not that I have ever come across, and it would take a very silly
company to chose to do so.

As has already been pointed out it is usually a very bad idea to say
you have an alarm for insurance purposes unless it is a proper
monitored Redcare type, not the noddy ADT type auto diallers which are
very simple to disable.

How do you propose to disable them ?

Cut the wire.

Useless with the best monitored systems, that sees
the cops show up because the wire has been cut.

Particularly when they use the mobile phone system.

Even easier.

Fantasy.

Jam the gsm control channel with a jamer off ebay.

Pity about the non GSM mobile systems that cant be jammed like that.

In message , Rod Speed
writes

The vast majority of burglaries are on spec.

The vast majority happen in urban areas.

Colin Bignell

The go by the value of the car parked on the driveway.

Didn't happen that way here. I was still getting attempts
when the Golf was 30 years old. And have had only one
which wasn't a normal burglary attempt since it was
replaced with a brand new Getz.

They prolly just wanted to kill you



--
geoff

dennis@home wrote
harry wrote
ARW wrote
Dave Plowman (News) wrote

And I have decent neighbours who wouldn't just ignore it.

And that is the key to a good alarm. I have fitted several alarms on my
street - both nextdoor neighbours and the neighbours opposite would
respond if my alarm went off just as I would if theirs went off. I
always tell them when I am working away and they do keep an eye on my
house.

A good dog is better than any of the above.
Alarm and attack system in one cheap/free package.

I wonder how this new law about dogs attacking people on private property
will affect dog attacks burglar scenario?

My last dog would have ripped a burglars throat out.

there are various aerosols available in supermarkets/halfords that will
disable a dog without much trouble.

You wont disable a ****ing great alsatian with one of those.

If those worked, all the burglars would carry them so the dog squad
wouldn't have a hope in hell, and they don't, because they don't work.

Even the cops don't do it that way when they show up at a drug
dealer's place which has got dogs there to slow the cops down
while they flush the drugs down the sewer.

In message , Rod Speed
writes


"Owain" wrote in message
...
On Feb 16, 12:06 pm, Bill wrote:
How many real CCTV cameras do you know with LED indicators on them?
Especially flashing ones?

I have often wondered about the double bluff idea and putting a few
flashing LEDs on real systems though :-)

Might stop the real cameras getting vandalised.

It isnt hard to make the real cameras invisible.

Been there, done it.

But there are some places that will not allow the use of covert cameras,
they are happy with as many overt as you like though.

--
Bill

"Nick Odell" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 19:25:03 +0000, polygonum
wrote:

On 16/02/2013 19:16, harry wrote:
On Feb 16, 12:28 pm, Nightjar
wrote:
On 16/02/2013 12:13, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article ,
Nightjar wrote:
Most of the are druggys paying for their drug habits.

Possibly true in urban areas, but in rural and semi-rural areas
the main risk is from professional thieves, who are prepared to
travel great distances to find rich pickings.

Professional thieves ain't going to travel great distances on
spec. More likely target a place they know contains valuables.

Exactly why they will know what sort of burglar alarm is being
used.

The vast majority of burglaries are on spec.

The vast majority happen in urban areas.

Colin Bignell

The go by the value of the car parked on the driveway.

Which is not a very sensible approach when the residents are out - and
have either one car or a second car that is grossly mis-leading. E.g
Bentley and beaten up Fiesta. I think that most burglaries are when the
residents are not at home - not all, to be sure, but most.

A lot of burglaries nowadays are really car thefts and almost
by definition must happen when the residents are home.

I doubt its anything like most. Most are
just druggys funding their drug habits.

The car is picked out - often from a shopping list - and the
house is burgled in order to steal the keys - immobilisers
being so much more sophisticated these days. Or so I am told.

But the statistics don't support what you have been told.

And its easy enough to avoid that sort of burglary anyway,
just make the place secure enough so it takes some time to
get in, so the cops show up while they are still trying to get in.

Even just bars on the windows does that very effectively.

Peter Parry wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Peter Parry wrote
Toby Sleigh wrote

A cunning plan indeed, but insurance companies are notorious for
weasling
out on the slightest excuse, so my original question still remains
unanswered.
Are there any companies that will maintain a diy fitted burglar alarm.

Not that I have ever come across, and it would
take a very silly company to chose to do so.

As has already been pointed out it is usually a very bad idea to say
you have an alarm for insurance purposes unless it is a proper
monitored Redcare type, not the noddy ADT type auto diallers which are
very simple to disable.

How do you propose to disable them ?

Easily,

Its completely trivial to detect if the phone line has been cut.

if you don't know how you will understand if I
decline to publicise the very simple method further.

There is no very simple method that works.

Particularly when they use the mobile phone system.

Auto diallers generally don't,

Irrelevant to what you can do if you care about that risk.

most are class B alarms.

Irrelevant to what you can do if you care about that risk.

Also bear in mind police forces do not, as a matter of policy, react
to bells only alarm as over 99% are false alarms. If a neighbour
phones the police and reports an alarm activation they will be
referred to the local council noise abetment unit. Only if they phone
and say the alarm has gone off and they can see someone loading your
belongings into a van might someone turn up, eventually.

That isnt what happened here. The cops showed up very
promptly and they certainly weren't told that anyone saw
anything being loaded into a van or into anything else either.

Read the ACPO policy. If you were fortunate enough
to have someone turn up count yourself lucky.

No thanks, I know it wasn't luck because I did it quite
a few times and they ALWAYS showed up very quickly.

One time it was the sergeant who is built like a brick
****house and he came tearing around the side of
the house with his long baton in his hand and the
two school girls who had been stupid enough
to try to get into the house while I was in its
damned near shat themselves on the spot.

There is no police response

I never saw that even once over dozens of
times now with me and my neighbours.

because over 99% of bells only of alarms from Class B alarms
are false, due to operator error or poor quality installation.

On 16/02/2013 22:05, Bill wrote:
In message , Rod Speed

It isnt hard to make the real cameras invisible.

Been there, done it.

But there are some places that will not allow the use of covert cameras,
they are happy with as many overt as you like though.

How the hell can you make a camera invisible????

You might be able to hide it, disguise it, or whatever. But one thing I
do not believe can ever be possible is making one invisible. :-)

(At least at the wavelengths to which the camera is sensitive.)

--
Rod

On 16/02/2013 21:58, Rod Speed wrote:
dennis@home wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Peter Parry wrote
Toby Sleigh wrote

A cunning plan indeed, but insurance companies are notorious for
weasling
out on the slightest excuse, so my original question still remains
unanswered.
Are there any companies that will maintain a diy fitted burglar alarm.

Not that I have ever come across, and it would take a very silly
company to chose to do so.

As has already been pointed out it is usually a very bad idea to say
you have an alarm for insurance purposes unless it is a proper
monitored Redcare type, not the noddy ADT type auto diallers which are
very simple to disable.

How do you propose to disable them ?

Cut the wire.

Useless with the best monitored systems, that sees
the cops show up because the wire has been cut.

auto diallers aren't monitored.


Particularly when they use the mobile phone system.

Even easier.

Fantasy.

Jam the gsm control channel with a jamer off ebay.

Pity about the non GSM mobile systems that cant be jammed like that.

Pity that they use gsm over here.

In message , polygonum
writes
On 16/02/2013 22:05, Bill wrote:
In message , Rod Speed

It isnt hard to make the real cameras invisible.

Been there, done it.

But there are some places that will not allow the use of covert cameras,
they are happy with as many overt as you like though.

How the hell can you make a camera invisible????

You might be able to hide it, disguise it, or whatever. But one thing I
do not believe can ever be possible is making one invisible. :-)

(At least at the wavelengths to which the camera is sensitive.)


99% of the time disguising it will be enough, smoke detectors, PIRs etc.


Providing you are happy with monochrome images then put an IR sensitive
camera behind an IR filter, that will not let visible light through. It
can see you, but you won't see it.

If you want colour then partially mirrored glass with the camera in the
dark behind it.

You have watched Big Brother on TV haven't you?

--
Bill

On 16/02/2013 23:01, Bill wrote:


99% of the time disguising it will be enough, smoke detectors, PIRs etc.


Providing you are happy with monochrome images then put an IR sensitive
camera behind an IR filter, that will not let visible light through. It
can see you, but you won't see it.

If you want colour then partially mirrored glass with the camera in the
dark behind it.

You have watched Big Brother on TV haven't you?

Not a popular beat combo, I assume?

'twas just a silly observation. :-)

--
Rod

On 16/02/2013 22:09, Rod Speed wrote:


"Nick Odell" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 19:25:03 +0000, polygonum
wrote:

On 16/02/2013 19:16, harry wrote:
On Feb 16, 12:28 pm, Nightjar
wrote:
On 16/02/2013 12:13, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article ,
Nightjar wrote:
Most of the are druggys paying for their drug habits.

Possibly true in urban areas, but in rural and semi-rural areas
the main risk is from professional thieves, who are prepared to
travel great distances to find rich pickings.

Professional thieves ain't going to travel great distances on
spec. More likely target a place they know contains valuables.

Exactly why they will know what sort of burglar alarm is being
used.

The vast majority of burglaries are on spec.

The vast majority happen in urban areas.

Colin Bignell

The go by the value of the car parked on the driveway.

Which is not a very sensible approach when the residents are out - and
have either one car or a second car that is grossly mis-leading. E.g
Bentley and beaten up Fiesta. I think that most burglaries are when the
residents are not at home - not all, to be sure, but most.

A lot of burglaries nowadays are really car thefts and almost
by definition must happen when the residents are home.

I doubt its anything like most. Most are
just druggys funding their drug habits.

The car is picked out - often from a shopping list - and the
house is burgled in order to steal the keys - immobilisers
being so much more sophisticated these days. Or so I am told.

But the statistics don't support what you have been told.

And its easy enough to avoid that sort of burglary anyway,
just make the place secure enough so it takes some time to
get in, so the cops show up while they are still trying to get in.

Even just bars on the windows does that very effectively.

Most people do not want to live with steel doors and bars on windows. It
is a home, not a self-imposed prison!

SteveW

On 16/02/2013 14:53, Bill wrote:
In message
,
Owain writes
On Feb 16, 12:06 pm, Bill wrote:
How many real CCTV cameras do you know with LED indicators on them?
Especially flashing ones?

I have often wondered about the double bluff idea and putting a few
flashing LEDs on real systems though :-)

Might stop the real cameras getting vandalised.

I fitted out a block of flats and made sure that each internal camera
covered the other one on the same floor. One of the inmates, residents,
came in with his hoody up and spray painted both cameras in the lobby.
one camera caught him, the other was obviously blacked out. His
disguise was very good, totally unrecognisable, just a pity that he wore
the same closes, minus the hood up when he first came in earlier and
later when he left again, some people are idiots...

Indeed. Our local post-office was robbed at knifepoint. The staff then
called the police and named the offender - as it was the same
post-office that he cashed his giro at each fortnight!

SteveW

In article ,
Rod Speed wrote:
"Dave Plowman (News)" wrote in message
...
In article
,
harry wrote:
A good dog is better than any of the above.
Alarm and attack system in one cheap/free package.

By that you've never owned a dog.

Bet he has and is just understating the cost.

It isnt that expensive with a smaller dog
that is happy to eat the dry dog food.

And it never gets ill or old.

--
*Velcro - what a rip off!*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article
,
harry wrote:
The vast majority happen in urban areas.

Colin Bignell

The go by the value of the car parked on the driveway.

The vast majority of houses round here have no driveway. ;-) Same for most
of Central London.
Nor is there any guarantee you can park outside your own front door - so
not much of a guide.

--
*Some days we are the flies; some days we are the windscreen.*

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

In article ,
Rod Speed wrote:
Me?
Grab the fire-axe by the door and go down swinging.
**** the law, **** the thieves, they're not having any of my kit.

Your kit is more important than your liberty?

Some have a ****ing great knife handy.

And very likely to use it if you appear swinging an axe.

Once you have killed the intruder, you put the knife in the corpse's
hand and claim that you had no choice but to kill it with the axe.

Or just as likely, he kills you.

Not clear what happens when there are more than one and
one escapes and claims that they had no knife, unlikely that
they would be believed, but there is some risk of that obviously.

I get the impression you're all talk...

--
*Always drink upstream from the herd *

Dave Plowman London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 16:50:56 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
wrote:

Me?
Grab the fire-axe by the door and go down swinging.
**** the law, **** the thieves, they're not having any of my kit.

Your kit is more important than your liberty?

It's all a question of cost.
My stuff, I sweated my ******** off to get the wherewithal to buy it;
hours and days of fecking pain and discomfort were endured to earn
money.
Any fecker comes in to my place, with the intention of stealing from
me will have to pay the price in at least the same amount of pain,
condensed into a single blow. That might prove fatal, but that's just
tough ****e.

SteveW wrote:


Even just bars on the windows does that very effectively.

Most people do not want to live with steel doors and bars on windows. It
is a home, not a self-imposed prison!


Thats one of the things i find so depressing when i go up to London these
days, when i was young people used to leave their front doors open in the
summer.

-

Dave Plowman (News) wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Me?
Grab the fire-axe by the door and go down swinging.
**** the law, **** the thieves, they're not having any of my kit.

Your kit is more important than your liberty?

Some have a ****ing great knife handy.

And very likely to use it if you appear swinging an axe.

Even someone as stupid as you should be able to
work out how to keep that where the crim can't find it.

Once you have killed the intruder, you put the knife in the corpse's
hand and claim that you had no choice but to kill it with the axe.

Or just as likely, he kills you.

Just another of your pathetic little drug crazed fantasys.

Not clear what happens when there are more than one and
one escapes and claims that they had no knife, unlikely that
they would be believed, but there is some risk of that obviously.

I get the impression you're all talk...

The crims that ended up in jail know that I'm not.

Dave Plowman (News) wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Dave Plowman (News) wrote
harry wrote:

A good dog is better than any of the above.
Alarm and attack system in one cheap/free package.

By that you've never owned a dog.

Bet he has and is just understating the cost.

It isnt that expensive with a smaller dog
that is happy to eat the dry dog food.

And it never gets ill or old.

None of mine have cost much for either of those.

"SteveW" wrote in message
...
On 16/02/2013 22:09, Rod Speed wrote:


"Nick Odell" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 19:25:03 +0000, polygonum
wrote:

On 16/02/2013 19:16, harry wrote:
On Feb 16, 12:28 pm, Nightjar
wrote:
On 16/02/2013 12:13, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article ,
Nightjar wrote:
Most of the are druggys paying for their drug habits.

Possibly true in urban areas, but in rural and semi-rural areas
the main risk is from professional thieves, who are prepared to
travel great distances to find rich pickings.

Professional thieves ain't going to travel great distances on
spec. More likely target a place they know contains valuables.

Exactly why they will know what sort of burglar alarm is being
used.

The vast majority of burglaries are on spec.

The vast majority happen in urban areas.

Colin Bignell

The go by the value of the car parked on the driveway.

Which is not a very sensible approach when the residents are out - and
have either one car or a second car that is grossly mis-leading. E.g
Bentley and beaten up Fiesta. I think that most burglaries are when the
residents are not at home - not all, to be sure, but most.

A lot of burglaries nowadays are really car thefts and almost
by definition must happen when the residents are home.

I doubt its anything like most. Most are
just druggys funding their drug habits.

The car is picked out - often from a shopping list - and the
house is burgled in order to steal the keys - immobilisers
being so much more sophisticated these days. Or so I am told.

But the statistics don't support what you have been told.

And its easy enough to avoid that sort of burglary anyway,
just make the place secure enough so it takes some time to
get in, so the cops show up while they are still trying to get in.

Even just bars on the windows does that very effectively.

Most people do not want to live with steel doors and bars on windows.

That's clearly a lie in the places where crime is common.

It is a home, not a self-imposed prison!

Bars don't make it a prison because even someone as
stupid as you should be able to work out how to use
the key and get out, if someone was actually stupid
enough to lend you a seeing eye dog and a white cane.

"dennis@home" wrote in message
eb.com...
On 16/02/2013 21:58, Rod Speed wrote:
dennis@home wrote
Rod Speed wrote
Peter Parry wrote
Toby Sleigh wrote

A cunning plan indeed, but insurance companies are notorious for
weasling
out on the slightest excuse, so my original question still remains
unanswered.
Are there any companies that will maintain a diy fitted burglar
alarm.

Not that I have ever come across, and it would take a very silly
company to chose to do so.

As has already been pointed out it is usually a very bad idea to say
you have an alarm for insurance purposes unless it is a proper
monitored Redcare type, not the noddy ADT type auto diallers which are
very simple to disable.

How do you propose to disable them ?

Cut the wire.

Useless with the best monitored systems, that sees
the cops show up because the wire has been cut.

auto diallers aren't monitored.

But the phone line can be trivially and when its been
cut, you just alarm using the mobile phone system.

Its completely trivial to monitor the loss of the
50VDC that shows the phone line has been cut.

Particularly when they use the mobile phone system.

Even easier.

Fantasy.

Jam the gsm control channel with a jamer off ebay.

Pity about the non GSM mobile systems that cant be jammed like that.

Pity that they use gsm over here.

Not exclusively.

polygonum wrote
Bill wrote
Rod Speed wrote

It isnt hard to make the real cameras invisible.

Been there, done it.

But there are some places that will not allow the use of covert cameras,
they are happy with as many overt as you like though.

How the hell can you make a camera invisible????

Just put it inside something that has quite a few holes behind one of the
holes.

Very easy with modern small cameras.

You might be able to hide it, disguise it, or whatever. But one thing I do
not believe can ever be possible is making one invisible. :-)

Trivially easy in fact. You can even buy them like that.

(At least at the wavelengths to which the camera is sensitive.)

You can do that too, just not worth the trouble when the other
way is so trivially easy.

On Feb 16, 7:22*pm, "dennis@home"
wrote:
On 16/02/2013 07:38, harry wrote:









On Feb 15, 6:53 pm, "ARW" wrote:
Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In article ,
And I have decent neighbours who wouldn't just ignore it.

And that is the key to a good alarm. I have fitted several alarms on my
street - both nextdoor neighbours and the neighbours opposite would respond
if my alarm went off just as I would if theirs went off. I always tell them
when I am working away and they do keep an eye on my house.

--
Adam

A good dog is better than any of the above.
Alarm and attack system in one cheap/free package.

I wonder how this new law about dogs attacking people on private
property will affect dog attacks burglar scenario?

My last dog would have ripped a burglars throat out.

there are various aerosols available in supermarkets/halfords that will
disable a dog without much trouble.

Which ones are they?
Are you making stuff up again?

On Feb 16, 7:25*pm, polygonum wrote:
On 16/02/2013 19:16, harry wrote:







On Feb 16, 12:28 pm, Nightjar
wrote:
On 16/02/2013 12:13, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article ,
Nightjar wrote:
Most of the are druggys paying for their drug habits.

Possibly true in urban areas, but in rural and semi-rural areas
the main risk is from professional thieves, who are prepared to
travel great distances to find rich pickings.

Professional thieves ain't going to travel great distances on
spec. More likely target a place they know contains valuables.

Exactly why they will know what sort of burglar alarm is being
used.

The vast majority of burglaries are on spec.

The vast majority happen in urban areas.

Colin Bignell

The go by the value of the car parked on the driveway.

Which is not a very sensible approach when the residents are out - and
have either one car or a second car that is grossly mis-leading. E.g
Bentley and beaten up Fiesta. I think that most burglaries are when the
residents are not at home - not all, to be sure, but most.

--
Rod

I think they do a reccy first.
It's important to garage your car. If your normally visible car is
not there, they know you are out.
And always shut the driveway gate.

On Feb 16, 8:01*pm, Nick Odell wrote:
On Sat, 16 Feb 2013 19:25:03 +0000, polygonum
wrote:









On 16/02/2013 19:16, harry wrote:
On Feb 16, 12:28 pm, Nightjar
wrote:
On 16/02/2013 12:13, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

In article ,
Nightjar wrote:
Most of the are druggys paying for their drug habits.

Possibly true in urban areas, but in rural and semi-rural areas
the main risk is from professional thieves, who are prepared to
travel great distances to find rich pickings.

Professional thieves ain't going to travel great distances on
spec. More likely target a place they know contains valuables.

Exactly why they will know what sort of burglar alarm is being
used.

The vast majority of burglaries are on spec.

The vast majority happen in urban areas.

Colin Bignell

The go by the value of the car parked on the driveway.

Which is not a very sensible approach when the residents are out - and
have either one car or a second car that is grossly mis-leading. E.g
Bentley and beaten up Fiesta. I think that most burglaries are when the
residents are not at home - not all, to be sure, but most.

A lot of burglaries nowadays are really car thefts and almost by
definition must happen when the residents are home. The car is picked
out - often from a shopping list - and the house is burgled in order
to steal the keys - immobilisers being so much more sophisticated
these days. Or so I am told.

Nick

Yes, I heard that. I also read that 90% of people keep their car keys
within ten feet of the house door.
Are you one of them?

On Feb 16, 8:47*pm, tony sayer wrote:
In article
.com, Richard Russell scribeth thus

On Feb 15, 3:13*pm, Jethro_uk wrote:
Especially since if you have got one, but had a
break in when it was off (e.g. you were at home) they may not pay up.

We changed our house insurer in part because the old policy implied,
as you say, that if the alarm was not working *for any reason*
(whether forgetting to set it, or a hardware failure for example) they
might not pay up. *That struck us as utterly ridiculous. *Our new
insurer gives a discount for having an alarm
(so long as it is
professionally maintained)

What exactly do the professional maintainers do for the money?...

Other than perhaps change the power unit battery once every 10
years?....
--
Tony Sayer

I think they just confirm everything is working & sign a bit of paper.