Home Security - what we did
Now that we're retired we take longer trips - but we worry about leaving the house for long. We don't have family in the area and don't have any close neighbors that we'd like to put responsibility on...
Forum Discussion
RoyB wrote:
Having not checked into something like this but my first question is what can the POLICE/FIRE DEPT do for you if no one is at the home...
With SimpliSafe, and ADT for that matter, the police/fire dispatch is done by a person at the company dispatch center. They will also contact me via my cell phone. The police will check the house for signs of a break in and take the appropriate action. If someone has broken in and the house cannot be secured, I just call my insurance company and they send out a board up crew to secure the house.
If the smoke detectors have triggered, the fire department is called and they will most likely break through the front door to deal with the fire. Have never had a smoke detector just go off for no reason so if one is triggered there is probably a fire. Not much chance of someone burning dinner when nobody is here. Once again, the insurance company sends out a board up crew to secure whatever is left.
Have had the system for a couple of years now and feel much better about being gone for any length of time that before when we just asked the neighbors to keep an eye on the place. As for paperwork, SimpliSafe gave us a form letter that we gave to the Police department when we installed the system. It identifies their monitoring center and I had to sign a document stating that I would pay $30 for false alarms if I have more than one per year. So far, I have had none.
My daughter has ADT and it works pretty much the same way, except she pays over twice what I do for the monitoring service.
