Getting Security System Is a Lot Like Being Married

Frankly, I wish I had written this two-part series on home security about six months ago-- before I purchased a home-security system myself.

Oh, the system works just fine, thanks. I’ve been very happy with my installer, the equipment and the company that monitors my alarm. I guess I was simply ill-prepared for the changes that having an alarm can cause in a homeowner’s life.

In some ways, learning to live with a new system is sort of like getting married, or having someone move into your house. It takes a while to get used to each other, and occasionally both of you are going to “sound off.”

My alarm spent most of our first week together screaming. I spent most of it cursing.

I don’t live in a “high-crime” area, but I had the installer wire all my doors and windows anyway. I also had a motion detector installed as a backup, just in case someone was able to sneak in undetected.

I set my alarm the first night it had been installed and went to sleep, thinking how nice it was to be so secure.

But when I got up around midnight to get a drink of water from the kitchen, my movement triggered the motion detector and set off an outside siren that’s louder than the trumpets that brought down the walls of Jericho.

Now, I had already read the chapter in the instruction booklet that explained how to turn the alarm on. Unfortunately, I had merely skimmed the chapter that told how to turn it off.

By the time I was able to silence the siren, a half-dozen of my pajama-clad neighbors had gathered in my front yard, wondering what all the ruckus was about.

I tried to turn the alarm on again the next day, when I was leaving for work. I pushed all the buttons and stepped outside, locking my two deadbolts behind me.

I still don’t know why, but the siren went off again. I fumbled with my keys as the horn blared, and once again got flustered when I got back inside and tried to turn it off.

This time, it wasn’t the neighbors who gathered on my front yard: It was the police, who had been summoned by the guards at my system’s central monitoring station.

Despite the tie I was wearing and the briefcase I carried--not what a typical crook wears, unless he works on Wall Street--it took about 10 minutes to persuade the two officers it really was my home.

At least I knew that the folks at the monitoring station were on their toes, and that the police would quickly respond to their calls.

The final indignity came the next day, when I was taking a shower. The radio I always listen to when I’m getting ready for work began to crackle with static, but I just figured that it was interference.

When I shut off the water and emerged from the shower, I realized what was causing the trouble: My siren was once again blaring, apparently having been triggered by the steam that came from the water and wafted up into the smoke detector just outside the bathroom door.

By now, I had mastered the fine art of turning off my siren. Still dripping wet and wrapped only in a towel, I quickly shut down the system--just as a fire truck rolled up outside.

Fortunately, the fireman who came to the door was an understanding fellow. He said that a lot of homeowners with new alarm systems have trouble figuring out how they work, but that I’d be subject to a fine if I continued to have false alarms.

More important, he said, the time that he and the rest of the crew had spent at my house could have been catastrophically costly--not just in financial terms, but in human ones too--if my false alarm had delayed them in responding to a real emergency.

“I think you might want to read your instruction book a few more times,” he said, as he walked back toward the truck. “If you two are going to live together, you ought to get to know each other a little better.”