Is my cat setting off the house alarm?

guppy

Hi, I'm hoping for some help/experience with this. Maybe I'm in the wrong section though.

We have an indoor/outdoor female spayed 1.5 year old cat. Typically, she goes out in the morning, and stays in at night.

We've been having problems with our house alarm. It's not a new alarm, its over 20 years old. It keeps going off during the day. It took to going off when it wasn't even set at some points, but it was serviced (it's a rented house) and it's stopped going off when not set, but it's still going off during the day.

As I said, it's an old alarm based on contact points being broken at doors or windows setting it off. The windows and doors are wooden framed (also old) and the windows have those little locks you use a key to unscrew and open, and they are "locked".

My question is, do you think the cat perhaps pawing at the window/frames could be setting off the alarm? She's a 4kg cat, and isn't hurling herself at the window, but I want to be sure she's not doing it before further action is taken by the landlord to investigate the cause, and its found out that its the cat doing it

Thanks in advance.

anniehoo

Its quite possible alright. My (smallish) dog did it a few years back. She jumped on the windowsill and touched off the glass. It was obviously extremely sensitive and set off the Eircom Phonewatch trigger. Long story after that....but...yes its possible. If as you said its old, it could be faulty somewhere along the line either so ask the landlord to check it out.

paultf

As a pup, I had a similar problem with my cocker spaniel last year. She kept jumping up against the back door setting off the sensor.

Eventually I had to get Eircom to change the settings on the alarm. So now I have one setting when I go to bed - turns everything on including the back door. And the new alternative setting sets everything on except the back door - I enable this setting if I am away during the day as she use to jump up against the door if I was away too long! (If someone does get thru the back door they are faced by my dogs + there are infra-red beams in the house aswell which would catch them out.)

So there is a good chance your cat could be setting your alarm off as the sensors on windows/doors can be quite sensitive. (Maybe the sensor in question needs to be replaced as its too old?)

guppy

Thanks for that. I guess kitty will just have to stay indoors when the alarm is on from now on!