Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
security system-waste of money?
So the new home we bought already had a security system installed and DH and I are trying to decide if we want to turn on the service. ?We just changed out all of the locks today and sure, I might feel safer if we had a security system, but really, if someone breaks into our house they are going to be gone with our stuff before the cops show up. ?We have two cats and apparently we can't turn on the motion detectors because they would set it off when we weren't home. ?Just seems like a waste of money. ?Neither of us have ever lived in a home with one. ?Any thoughts either way on this?
?
I think if it weren't already installed, we might not really consider it at all. ?We were thinking of just leaving the sign up in the front yard from the previous owners so it "looked" like we had a security system...I think that's more of a deterrent than anything, right?
Re: security system-waste of money?
I suppose it would depend on your alarm system. With ours, it goes off really loud (I know, I've set it off on accident) and a real person comes over the speakers and starts yelling at you. I doubt any burglar is going to stick around.
As far as the cats, though, a motion sensor probably wouldn't work. We have one that does the motion sensor (which we use when we aren't home) and ones on our doors to go off if they are opened. We keep the ones on the doors on at all times when we are home. I like knowing at least the doors would go off if someone tried to break in while we're asleep. We sleep 2 floors above our basement so we'd never hear anyone break in down there otherwise. It's also good to have it armed when we go out of town. For us, it's totally worth the money.
I don't know the exact details of ours, but I do know when we set it to "away"...as in when we leave home, it has some kind of pet filter thingy so our cats don't set it off.
I would not necessarily say it is a waste of money. I guess it depends no how much peace of mind you get from it and how much it impacts your budget.
You might be able to use the alarm somewhat without paying for a monitoring service. You can sometimes have the system beep when a door is opened without pay any additional money.
My mom has an alarm system in her house and it has been beneficial. The system alerted us to smoke in the kitchen. She keeps her toaster inside an area with a pull down drawer. The toaster was not pushed in far enough and the door was pressing the toaster into the on position. The alarm went off and we were able to get to it before anything serious happened.
We were in the same situation, and we did hook ours up to ADT for a few years, but we've now canceled it and keep the sign in our front yard as a deterrent. We also still set the alarm at night when we go to bed, so if anyone broke in, it would go off and alert us, it just doesn't alert anyone outside the house (but again the burglar wouldn't know this).
Honestly, my MIL set it off once while we were out of town when she was feeding our cats while we still had ADT, and NOTHING happened. She sat on the front steps for over a half an hour and ADT never called and the cops never came. Finally, the alarm shut off on its own, and she went home. ADT called our cell phones instead of the home phone, and since we were in Aruba, we didn't get the message. The cops apparently came at some point because they billed us for the visit. The report said they looked at the exterior of the house and it looked like everything was okay so they left. So, if someone broke in and was raping me inside with the front door closed, the police wouldn't do anything anyway.
We were pretty disillusioned after that, and we figure our dog is a much better alarm system anyway!
We do keep the motion detector turned off on ours because of the pets.
Also, statistics show that break ins are most likely to happen during the day when the specific house and neighboring houses are vacant (people at work) or during periods of vacation. At this point, police response time plays a big role. Poor response doesn't do you an ounce of good.
We moved to NC from NJ. Up in NJ we didn't know of anyone who had a security system. So when we moved to NC, where the crime rate is MUCH lower, we found it odd that everyone had a security system. We ended up buying a house that doesn't have one and decided to not get one. We feel very safe in our neighborhood and have a dog with a mean bark. For us, it wasn't worth the monthly bill.
ETA- We do have a ton of smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors, so those are covered by other means. Also, when we travel we have a friend stay at our house and watch our dog. So very rarely is our house left empty, including the day since DH works from home.
First off: Major congrats on the new house. You will love being a home owner.
Secondly, I hope no robbers are reading this and trying to figure out where I live. What we did, mostly for my peace of mind, was to leave it hooked up, but not pay for the service. So it works like this, we set the alarm when we leave the house. If someone breaks in, the alarm will go off (loud as hell!) but it won't actually send a signal to an alarm company. I am sure some people will disagree, but I hope the alarm would be enough to scare someone away and it is definitely enough to alert all the neighbors. The alarm also dings when you open the doors or windows, so for example if I am home alone and someone were to break in, it would definitely wake me up. Like I said, this may sound ridiculous for some people, but it eases my anxiety and it is free. We just had to pay like $75 when we moved in to get it hooked up. We also leave the sign in the yard.