Magic Mushroom Farmer said:
Monitor it yourself...this is what I do,all you need is a mobile phone.
After all the police are so usless,in my area that you need to know
well before the police ever do that the place has been breached so I
have a chance of catching the dickheads,I added CCTV camera's ontop of
a monitored alarm,it amazing how well behaved people are when on
camera...lol,
As I have said before....there is still the odd,hogan bogan that thinks
my camera's are flashy outside lights,which don't work cause I can't
afford to get the electrition to connect them up,they soon learn
however when I catch up with them somewhere and imitate their
activities.
Believe me, unless you're sitting out the front of the house at the time you
have NO chance of catching them no matter who the call goes to.
Having worked in the security industry for years performing alarm responses
I have seen us arrive at a premises LESS that 1 minute after having been
advised of the alarm, and still the offender had left before we arrived.
Why? Because of the entry delay, then the time it takes the alarm to
report. A clever burglar knows what they want and is in and out in a matter
of seconds - we watched this incident on CCTV tape after to determine the
time frame and the offender had actually gotten in, got what he wanted, and
exited the building before the alarm had even had a chance to report......
The one thing a monitored system does is tell someone that something is
wrong, and that can be handy. I have responded to private residences where
people have pulled the fuses to cut power which then triggered the alarm, so
it prevented a break in because once it went off they knew that security
would be on the way. If you have a decent security company that should mean
a matter of minutes, but the acceptable standard is up to 30 minutes for a
response...
And don't get sucked in by the companies that say they send Police - that
usually takes longer as they have far better things to be doing than
checking alarms, and in NSW at least if the system false alarms too many
times you get fined if the Police have to respond. You be surprised how
many residential systems specify send Police not Patrol because they think
it's better to send the cops - if only they knew!!! And avoid the ones like
NRMA, ADT, FAI, etc - they contract out their responses and I have seen
their contractors take up to 1 hour to get around to responding because they
are so busy elsewhere - pick an actual reputible security company that is
well known and used commercially as well as residentially...