Home security

[Andy C]

A couple of days ago a neighbour of mine was a victim of a home invasion - at 4.30am four armed men broke into his house, pistol whipped him, locked him and his wife in the bathroom and spent 45 minutes in the house loading stuff into a vehicle in the street. She apparently managed to trigger a silent alarm - the cops turned up in 2 minutes - they caught 2 of the attackers - the other 2 escaped out the back.

9 stitches later he is back at home being thankful that he is still alive.

So I was wondering what home security measures some of you guys use - equipment, dogs, lights etc. And I dont want to hear Guns Guns Guns - I want to know how you are alerted to an intruder in the first place not how you send them to hell afterwards.

I use a system that basically puts a motion detection perimeter around my property - if you have reached my front door then you have already triggered up to as many as 5 alarms.

The detector heads are weatherproof - detect movment up to 100 feet and transmit a signal back to the base station up to 2000 feet away. The base station has the ability to monitor 14 detection zones. Everything is battery operated - the base station has mains supply but has a 18 hour battery back up.

So anyone entering my property at night is going to alert me long before they get anywhere near the house.

Then they get introduced to "My little friend"