Car / House Alarms

Duck's hoop

Is it just me, or have these become so ubiquitous in certain places that it's basically the background tune to your day?

I live in suburban Dublin, and I can count the minutes of a 24 hour day when I can't one or the other going off well within earshot. Day or night.

That along with the incessant cawing of crows, and cackling of literally hundreds of magpies has my head melted.

Isn't there a law about the alarm thing? Noise pollution? They all sound exactly the same, and obviously serve no purpose whatsoever.

kneemos

Should get them to play a tune instead of the piercing on off noise.

wazky

Hearing incessant alarms is probably a clue that you should quit your job as a burglar.

TheBody

I lived in an estate for 10 years and like the op, the bloody house alarms are going 24 hours per day. I had to move out to the country to keep what was left of my sanity.

Ray Palmer

There is a somebody who lives near me who sets off their house alarm every morning at 5am for about 2 weeks then it stops for 2 weeks. I assume they do shift work of some sort. The fact it happens so regularly suggests to me it is a deliberate act.

The reality is alarms are useless because they go off falsely and people ignore them. They are meant to have a limiter for them to go off for no longer than 15 minutes now. If your neighbour sets it off repeatedly or doesn't have the limiter you can report them to PSA

They apparently have the power to enforce alarm controls while the council or guards don't.

kneemos

I think the law in the UK is that they switch off after twenty minutes,here I don't know but the one or two that do go off switch themselves off on the dot of twenty minutes.
Maybe older alarms don't have this capability.

MugMugs

I have a house alarm.

It doesn't self activate.

It does tell me if somebody is trying to break into my home and it's a psychological deterrent to any would be burglar.

If it goes off during the day while I am out then I will know and I can remotely deal with it.

My car alarm is the same thing.

Nemeses

How do you know they "serve no purpose whatsoever".


Can you tell me what the point of an alarm was again?

Christ the Redeemer

It's a big problem in my area, some are going off a 6:30AM and still going at 7:30PM that night.

Usually the types that have a large dog out their back who is basically left to rott and jumps again the windows setting them off.

There should be a fine imposed.

Ray Palmer

MugMugs wrote: »

I have a house alarm.

It doesn't self activate.

It does tell me if somebody is trying to break into my home and it's a psychological deterrent to any would be burglar.

If it goes off during the day while I am out then I will know and I can remotely deal with it.

My car alarm is the same thing.

Alarms go off accidentally all the time. Do you have a magic one?

It is not much of a deterrent to any burglar. So many are ignored and easy enough to bypass. remove the glass pane switch off the fuse board.

Just because you alarm is monitored doesn't make it actually work any better.

Then if you have your insurance discounted for you alarm and forget to switch it on the insurance won't pay out.

They really aren't worth the hassle

RayM

Ray Palmer wrote: »

They are meant to have a limiter for them to go off for no longer than 15 minutes now.

That's 15 minutes too long. It should be illegal to have a siren on your house. It's obnoxious and misanthropic.

Christ the Redeemer

Nemeses wrote: »

How do you know they "serve no purpose whatsoever".


Can you tell me what the point of an alarm was again?

If I was a burglar, I would drive around looking for houses whose alarm is going off all day and rob that gaff.

The Backwards Man

My neighbour's alarm kept going off at all hours, so I stole it.

castletownman

SILENT ALARM ACTIVATED

Ray Palmer

RayM wrote: »

That's 15 minutes too long. It should be illegal to have a siren on your house. It's obnoxious and misanthropic.

I agree but 15 minutes is better than a week as I have experienced.

There is a house near where I work and the alarm is going off for the entire work day at least once a week.

Nemeses

Christ the Redeemer wrote: »

If I was a burglar, I would drive around looking for houses whose alarm is going off all day and rob that gaff.

If that was the case,You'd be a pretty cr@ppy burglar in all fairness :P

Wibbs

Ray Palmer wrote: »

Alarms go off accidentally all the time. Do you have a magic one?

Well I must have a magic one too then. I've never had a false alarm on my house alarm and only a couple on the car alarm, when I installed it first and was dialing in the various sensors( and threw out the shock sensor, they're shíte and a near given for false alarms). Basically if your car alarm is falsing too often it aint set up correctly. Goes for house alarms too.

It is not much of a deterrent to any burglar. So many are ignored and easy enough to bypass. remove the glass pane switch off the fuse board.

1) good luck with removing any glass panes on my gaff as they're well secured and 2) if you do, the alarm goes off 3) then the dog has a raw meat dinner.

Wibbs

Ray Palmer wrote: »

There is a house near where I work and the alarm is going off for the entire work day at least once a week.

I'd be reporting that prick ASAP.

Ray Palmer

Wibbs wrote: »

1) good luck with removing any glass panes on my gaff as they're well secured and 2) if you do, the alarm goes off 3) then the dog has a raw meat dinner.

Glass sensors listen for the sound of breaking glass, don't break the glass the alarm doesn't go off. A pane of glass is easy to take out of any modern window frame. A dog is easily taken care of too. Not many dogs refuse food or the smell of a bitch in heat.

You have to have a house worth putting that effort in for though.

wazky

Ray Palmer wrote: »

Glass sensors listen for the sound of breaking glass, don't break the glass the alarm doesn't go off. A pane of glass is easy to take out of any modern window frame. A dog is easily taken care of too. Not many dogs refuse food or the smell of a bitch in heat.

You have to have a house worth putting that effort in for though.

So burglars now carry horny female dogs in their toolkit?

Wibbs

Ray Palmer wrote: »

Glass sensors listen for the sound of breaking glass, don't break the glass the alarm doesn't go off.

There is more than one type of sensor you know? I don't use glass sensors. Pointless with double glazing. These are contact sensors. Try removing the pane and they go off.

A pane of glass is easy to take out of any modern window frame.

Wrong. It depends on the design. One where the pane is installed from the inside leaving no way of removing them from the outside are not easy to take out. Even if you have one of the "easy" ones a bead of silicon sealer renders them a right bitch to take out.

A dog is easily taken care of too. Not many dogs refuse food or the smell of a bitch in heat.

Indeed, but it depends on the dog. My dog hates strangers and won't even take a treat from mates of mine if I'm not in the room.

MadsL

Dublin City Council did lobby for a change in the law that allowed the Gardai to forcibly enter the premises and instruct an alarm company to deactivate the alarm.

It was held to be unconstitutional since the citizens home is inviolable under the constitution and no crime had been committed.

A pity. Dublin is rife with false alarms.

The solution I think is to require over a ten year period, the retirement of siren alarms in place on monitored alarm systems that alert the keyholder by text and phone call and alert the Gardai.

Car Alarms are pointless unless used as panic buttons in which case they need to scream "HelpME!". Immobilisers are much more sensible.

wazky

Why the need for alarms anyway?

A shotgun with a length of string tied to the trigger and door handle is real security.

Wibbs

MadsL wrote: »

Car Alarms are pointless unless used as panic buttons in which case they need to scream "HelpME!". Immobilisers are much more sensible.

While immobilisers are a given, alarms do have a point, it alerts me that something is up with my car that I should heed. It tells the scum that their attempt has triggered a warning and the owner could be on the way. This goes triple if the car is parked outside my house. Without an alarm scum could get into my car unnoticed and steal stuff from the car(though I'm not so dumb to leave anything of value in it), or even steal parts from it. There is quite a trend with the latter where scum nick cat converters, HID headlights, even bumpers and such.

RayM

Wibbs wrote: »

While immobilisers are a given, alarms do have a point, it alerts me that something is up with my car that I should heed.

It also (noisily and pointlessly) alerts everybody else, sometimes several streets away, that something is up with a car, somewhere.

MadsL

Wibbs wrote: »

While immobilisers are a given, alarms do have a point, it alerts me that something is up with my car that I should heed. It tells the scum that their attempt has triggered a warning and the owner could be on the way. This goes triple if the car is parked outside my house. Without an alarm scum could get into my car unnoticed and steal stuff from the car(though I'm not so dumb to leave anything of value in it), or even steal parts from it. There is quite a trend with the latter where scum nick cat converters, HID headlights, even bumpers and such.

Could it not also do that by;

1. Sending you a text message/special alert
2. Sending its location to the Gardai
3. Politely informing the 'scum' that the "Armed Security Response has been activated"

???

Wibbs

RayM wrote: »

It also (noisily and pointlessly) alerts everybody else, sometimes several streets away, that something is up with a car, somewhere.

Oh mine will alert people half a city away. Four horsemen of the apocalypse time. If it goes off in full armed mode, but as I said it won't unless some mouthbreathing ovenchips fed scumbucket attempts to violate it.

MadsL wrote: »

Could it not also do that by;

1. Sending you a text message/special alert

It can and does do that. It's a two way paging system and I can put it in stealth mode where it won't sound the main alarm, but will warn me. I set it that way a while ago and I awoke to the warnings, saw two scum from bedroom window, so triggered the full alarm. Oh boy did they take off at speed. Two 125 Db sirens, the car horn going off and a big light show will do that. I can also bypass the first stage warn away proximity sensors for crowds and carparks etc.

2. Sending its location to the Gardai

Going by bitter experience(and that of others) that would be about as much use as tits on a bull. While variable, their response time for property theft is often painfully slow. Not usually their fault either, not with the cutbacks and lack of support for the lads and lasses on the ground from the higher ups. I'd prefer that the car doesn't get moved by the scum in the first place and if it does it doesn't get very far. Unless it's for a raid or for parts, chances are once it's gone it'll be found burnt out within 24 hours after a "joyride". And if you think the thieves are bad, then you have to deal with the insurance companies who can be nearly as thieving only with fancy letterheads, especially if you've an older car.

3. Politely informing the 'scum' that the "Armed Security Response has been activated"

See above warn away proximity sensors. If you get too close to the car it will chirp a warning at you(and tell me someone's gotten too close for comfort).

After a car of mine got nicked before I swore never again or at least I'd make it damned hard for them. Even so, with all this the scum might win and nick it tonight, but by god they'll have worked for it.