Ever get woken up by your house alarm in the middle of the night?

We're renting a house built in late 2017 that has an alarm system, but it wasn't activated when we moved in and we chose not to. The husband is employed by the local police department and said they got tired of turning the damn thing off. We never thought to get a code from them since we didn't own an alarm system where we previously lived (Silicon Valley). The husband also said the neighborhood was in a very safe area.

That was all well and good until on January 2nd, I went out the door from the utility room to the garage, and the alarm went off! We're trying to yell at the alarm people through their system, telling them we're renting the place and don't have a code. After several minutes, they finally contacted one of the owners and confirmed the shut off code (I had texted the husband the minute the alarm went off).

We have no idea how the alarm got set. We thought maybe since we crossed into a new year and hadn't left the house on January 1st (pretty miserable weather outside), it somehow got set by the alarm company. Needless to say, we now have the alarm code, or at least I think we do. After what we went through, we are not interested in setting the alarm and trying to turn it off with the code as a test.
 
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simple girl said:
We don't have an alarm company that monitors the system. However I have a company I used to help me get the system running when we first bought this house.

I honestly do not know exactly how it works. It has to do with magnets, I believe, which are inserted in the door jam/door as well as in the window/window frame - when they are opened it triggers the internal alarm system to go off in the house.
Click to expand...

Sounds like you have a wired system.
Most systems work with a magnet switch placed at the doors and windows, plus optionally when you are out they might use motion sensors.

Ours is currently monitored, but we can cancel that and just have it so it only sounds an alarm, without a monitoring company sending the police.
 
I've done a full on room-to-room military raid-style room clearing at 3am before. Turned out it was a shelf that let go out in the garage, by way of my unhandy work of selecting and using insufficient fasteners. Was a good little practice session for "the real deal" though, and I learned I can get her loaded in my skivvies faster than if I put on pants :)
 
I'm glad it was a false alarm, Simple Girl!




And yes, I have. In my Motorhome. The previous owner installed a panic button above the bed since his health was not the best. And one night I must have been dreaming something interesting since I managed to stretch my hand far enough to hit the panic button!


It really deserve it's name because I panicked. Did not understand what was going on. Did not get afraid or anything like that - just heard the most awful loud noise and needed it to stop! Ran forward trough two locked doors - not looking for intruders at all. Found the alarm box and pushed buttons for several months before the siren got quiet. Well it felt like several months.



Only then did it dawn for me that it may have been set of by intruders. But luckily it was not. And the display told me it was the panic button.



Now I've learned what to press to turn off the alarm.
 
Sunset said:
I used to have a wired system , an animal got in and chewed through a wire which set off the alarm.
Click to expand...

According to this article:

Over the weekend, one squirrel went nuts and attacked a man in Sarasota, Fla. The incident was caught on camera.
Click to expand...
This mischievous squirrel was obviously the source of Simple Girl's night-time drama. Shame on that rodent! :fingerwag:
 
Yeah, but not mine. My neighbor has one with a horn on it that sounds for about 15 minutes. They had a bad contact and it kept going off. Security company fixed it...a few times, before it finally got fixed. It was their second home so they almost never were here. Really annoying. The first time I did check that there was no vehicle out front. We are too remote for anyone realistically to be walking through. I have a key and their code and at one point I think I told them (or maybe they suggested) I turned the system off until it got fixed. They were very, very apologetic. The thing is, there is virtually no crime here. An alarm system is good for fires, or a storm breaking a window or animal getting in, but there's really no need for an intruder alert like that.
 
our alarm has a flood sensor, and a temp sensor for fire/freeze , although I'm not sure what the police would do in that case ??

They also have smoke detectors available, but are a little expensive, and we already have lots of normal ones to wake us up.
 
Sunset said:
Ours is currently monitored, but we can cancel that and just have it so it only sounds an alarm, without a monitoring company sending the police.
Click to expand...

Yes, this is exactly what we have done. It sounds an alarm but since it isn't monitored, police aren't called unless we decide to. Last night I decided to call the police, as I wasn't about to leave my bedroom to investigate why the alarm went off!

We've lived here 2+ years and the alarm has never gone off of it's own accord like that, only when we have accidentally tripped it.

So, when it went off in the middle of the night, it certainly seemed like the real deal to me!
 
kgtest said:
I've done a full on room-to-room military raid-style room clearing at 3am before. Turned out it was a shelf that let go out in the garage, by way of my unhandy work of selecting and using insufficient fasteners. Was a good little practice session for "the real deal" though, and I learned I can get her loaded in my skivvies faster than if I put on pants :)
Click to expand...

Yikes! I can't even imagine doing that, no matter how well trained I was with a weapon. You got some kutzpa there man! No, not for me...calling for help! LOL!!!
 
Christine said:
I'm glad it was a false alarm, Simple Girl!




And yes, I have. In my Motorhome. The previous owner installed a panic button above the bed since his health was not the best. And one night I must have been dreaming something interesting since I managed to stretch my hand far enough to hit the panic button!


It really deserve it's name because I panicked. Did not understand what was going on. Did not get afraid or anything like that - just heard the most awful loud noise and needed it to stop! Ran forward trough two locked doors - not looking for intruders at all. Found the alarm box and pushed buttons for several months before the siren got quiet. Well it felt like several months.



Only then did it dawn for me that it may have been set of by intruders. But luckily it was not. And the display told me it was the panic button.



Now I've learned what to press to turn off the alarm.
Click to expand...

Oh my goodness!!!!

It's really hard to keep your wits straight when an alarm goes off in the middle of the night! It seemed like forever till I could figure out how to call 911. Silly me now realizes there is a 911 emergency button right on the front of my phone when I first swipe it. This was a good lesson learned!
 
socca said:
According to this article:

This mischievous squirrel was obviously the source of Simple Girl's night-time drama. Shame on that rodent! :fingerwag:
Click to expand...

OMG I saw that on the local news - nuts!!!!

OBVIOUSLY that same squirrel decided to torture me last night, too! :LOL::LOL::LOL:
 
simple girl said:
Oh my goodness!!!!

It's really hard to keep your wits straight when an alarm goes off in the middle of the night! It seemed like forever till I could figure out how to call 911. Silly me now realizes there is a 911 emergency button right on the front of my phone when I first swipe it. This was a good lesson learned!
Click to expand...
When you're wide awake and well rested everything is clear and easier. When suddenly awakened in the wee hours by a blaring alarm, you're lucky if you can get out of bed without injuring yourself. :)

We've (DM, DD, DB, us) had numerous false alarms with monitored home security systems, so even though our HOA pays the monitoring, we don't use it. Our unattended place in Caracas had an alarm that went off due to a HW failure, and stayed on for 2 days. To say the neighbors were not happy with us would be an understatement.

Our neighbor a few doors down has had multiple system fails where the alarm goes off with no one home, and just stays on for hours. A real PITA for the entire neighborhood.

Unfortunately, these systems are not high quality HW. Nothing wrong with a security system that lets us know someone is in the house, but that's it.
 
We live in a duplex condo. Next door neighbor's went off in the middle of the night. I knew they were away and I didn't want a fire in their unit to burn ours down, so went to investigate (I have a key). The talking alarm was saying "high carbon monoxide level - evacuate." I opened doors and windows and gave it time to get fresh air in and then investigated. I found the gas stove had one burner on at a very low level. Over time it had consumed so much oxygen and generated so much carbon monoxide that the alarm triggered. I turned off the stove, let the place air out and all was fine. When the neighbor got back he said he had made a cup of hot tea to take with him in the car just before he left and obviously didn't turn the burner completely off. But nice to know those things work like they should in case you have the tea before bed and are asleep when the oxygen goes away.
 
Sunset said:
our alarm has a flood sensor, and a temp sensor for fire/freeze , although I'm not sure what the police would do in that case ??

They also have smoke detectors available, but are a little expensive, and we already have lots of normal ones to wake us up.
Click to expand...

Monitored smoke detectors are good because the fire department will be called even if you aren't home when they go off. It's not unknown for people to leave something on the stove and leave the house.
 
Burglar alarm follies, Mark Twain story...

This thread brings back some 40+ year memories. For a good part of my grad studies I lived in a rented room+bathroom suite in a fairly big old house in a very tony part of town. Today houses on that street would probably cost $3+ million and, when I was there, the neighbors included some quite well known people. My landlady did not really need my small rent but she was nervous about being alone. Every now and then she would announce to me that someone on our street or nearby had just been burgled, so I guess there was a real concern. However, in my youth and arrogance I was actually secretly somewhat amused by the idea of these rich folks worried about losing their expensive stuff.

Anyways we had a burglar alarm. Up to that point I had never seen a burglar alarm or even known someone who had an alarm. My landlady explained it all to me and made me promise to turn it on when she wasn't there. When the alarm tripped it made an incredibly loud noise and also automatically alerted the local police. If it was tripped in error you could call the police with a code and they would call off the dogs as it were...

That alarm was a major source of distraction over my years there....

I managed to trip it in error coming home one evening and fortunately dragged the code from my memory and avoided an ackward confrontation with the police. But then over the next years the alarm would go off every few months - most likely because of some oversensitivity to power surges (my theory) or because some evil guy kept trying to break in (my landlady's theory). Once my landlady was away and I came walking back home late in the evening and the alarm was already ringing as I approached the house. The police arrived and I had to convince them I really lived here and then accompanied them on a search for the putative burgler who had possibly tripped the alarm.

Another time it rang in the middle of the night but I somehow slept through the alarm, the arrival of the police and my landlady's interactions with the police... I turned out to be the most useless "protection" imaginable for my landlady! This is still incredible to me as this alarm was LOUD and located just outside a window about 6-8 feet from my head when I was in bed. I now understand when I hear stories of children and even adults sleeping through fire alarms....

Anyways over my years there we never got burgled, neither did my landlady ever look into the possible electrical problems with the alarm. Surprisingly the police never kicked us off the automatic connection of our alarm with the police station, despite all the false alarms...

Now I am old and affluent enough to fear bunglers and feel vulnerable, but not so much as to try to install an alarm my condo...

Later I discovered the following story by Mark Twain

https://americanliterature.com/author/mark-twain/short-story/the-mcwilliamses-and-the-burglar-alarm
 
We've had a smoke alarm go off at the northern home when we were 1200 miles away. The fire department arrived and fortunately our son was there with a key to let them in for an inspection. They wanted to get to the attic to check for fire before they left and wouldn't comply with the Mrs. request that they take their boots off before going into the master closet where the access point was! That issue was due to a spider nesting in the detector.


As for the unlucky burglar that might happen along, both the Mrs. and I keep firearms within reach without leaving the bed. I refuse to be victimized in my own home.


Glad your issue wasn't for real Simplegirl.
 
One of my favorite bosses came home after work and thought he heard his wife in the shower. It turned out to be a burglar.. there was a struggle on the stairs and they both fell .. the burglar jumped to his feet and fled. He said the alarm system i have now is a dream.

I have an alarm, cameras, a dog, and a shotgun to be used in order.
 
Since our big dog died I was thinking of getting a alarm but this is making me rethink that idea. I do have 3 small alarm dogs.
 
Now I am old and affluent enough to fear bunglers and feel vulnerable, but not so much as to try to install an alarm my condo...
Click to expand...
Bunglers are bad; burglars are bad; but bungling burglars are the worst. :)

Many years ago a burglar broke into my grandmother's Florida snowbird condo. He entered through a kitchen window and somehow cut himself, leaving a bloody mess on the windowsill. Leaving copious bodily fluids at a crime scene is probably not a good idea. :popcorn:

As for the unlucky burglar that might happen along, both the Mrs. and I keep firearms within reach without leaving the bed.
Click to expand...
It sounds like the old maxim for a happy marriage - never go to bed angry - is especially applicable to your situation. :eek: :hide:
 
socca said:
...
Many years ago a burglar broke into my grandmother's Florida snowbird condo. He entered through a kitchen window and somehow cut himself, leaving a bloody mess on the windowsill. Leaving copious bodily fluids at a crime scene is probably not a good idea.

....
Click to expand...

The reality is the cops take the report, but dusting for fingerprints or DNA samples is the stuff of TV land.

It's more efficient for cops to do nothing, wait until a criminal gets caught at the scene or fleeing, or recognized from high quality camera pictures, and then find his stash of stolen goods related to dozens of robberies.
 
Sunset said:
It's more efficient for cops to do nothing, wait until a criminal gets caught at the scene or fleeing, or recognized from high quality camera pictures, and then find his stash of stolen goods related to dozens of robberies.
Click to expand...

+1

Low level property crimes are not a big priority. That's why it's important to keep a record of the serial numbers (when available) on all those expensive toys. If the police manage to come across your $12,000 worth of home theater equipment, it's nice to know you can prove it's yours.
 
Sunset said:
The reality is the cops take the report, but dusting for fingerprints or DNA samples is the stuff of TV land.
Click to expand...

It must depend on the agency. When I was in patrol I dusted a lot of burglary scenes for prints, and actually caught several that way. Widespread use of DNA was well before my time there so I can't speak to that.

And back when the banks still returned the original checks to the account holder we caught a lot of forgers using stolen checks with fingerprints.
 
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