Otherwise ya, it’s always smart to keep security in mind and plan things out well,
cheers from us at fivestaralarm.com!

Anyway, the company I’m probably going to go with (in the UK) will insure as little as £3000 of stuff, which when you consider your computer, clothes, TV or whatever will certainly add up quite quickly, so you can probably get a lot lower than $24000!

So yeah, they have it. But– thanks for prompting me to double-check. Impulse buying can have ugly consequences.

One night, my dad fell asleep on the couch and heard Rowdy, our boy, give one of his deep “I’m pretending to be a big scary dog” barks out of no-where. He went outside to investigate and found the back gate opened and a screen taken off a few back windows as if someone was trying to find a quick way in.

It would be nice to have fire monitoring. I have noise-only alarms for both fire and CO, but it would be good to hook this up to the alert system.

Then again, the perfect is the enemy of the good, and better to have some protection than none at all. Hmmm….

Any other recommendations?

——–

EDIT: actually, Simplisafe has both CO and smoke detectors! that’s it, i’m doing it. If they fail me, Dave Ramsey will get an earful from me– ha!

I’m required by the terms of my lease to have renter’s insurance, and the premiums aren’t that high. The liability coverage gives me piece of mind, and I know my emergency fund couldn’t cover replacing most of what I own. I don’t have a lot of “stuff”, but basics like furniture, clothing, dishes, pots and pans, etc. would really add up.

Frank has a point that we need to be mindful of our insurance coverage, but renter’s insurance isn’t somewhere I’m willing to compromise. We all have our own level of risk tolerance, though.

Yes, of course, no system is perfect. Cell signals can be jammed I suppose, but you can add backup alerts via the internet. Then of course the internet can be cut off. And so forth.

As said by another poster, determined thieves will break in if they really want to do it. As we add layers of security we make it more difficult for the criminals, and they are less likely to stay around to finish the job.

He’s a reverse motion detector

Our dog is the perfect combo (in my opinion he’s a great big softie, but looks and sounds scary, and loves to show off his big bark at passing skateboarders. But we’re pretty sure if someone (confidently) walked into our home, he’d wag his tail and lick them. Actually that pretty much happened once. The ‘intruder’ was drunk and had the wrong house, but no ill intent and was totally freaked when he realized where he was. Though I think he may be aggressive if someone physically threatened one of his people, I’ve never seen him be aggressive with another person or dog.

But of course I think it’s sad if people get dogs just because they serve a specific purpose, and not because they want a pet (with all the emotional and physical responsibilities that includes). All our pets our part of the family and we absolutely adore them, the safety part is just a bonus.

Maria

The wireless system sounds excellent in theory, but I’d like to suggest that it can be breached with a simple $20 cell phone blocker… if the potential intruders know what kind of system you have, or if the wireless systems become popular enough that the blockers start to be used frequently.