Re: Re: Major panic last night

["Ian Lowe" <ian@xxxxxxx>]

Easy Tiger ;)

>The first time to report an accident I saw and the second last night
when I
seriously
>believed someone was breaking into my house.

Yeah, Erroneously. Just like the vast majority of alarm triggers, no matter
how sophisticated the alarms involved are. Homeowners will see one or two
events like this, tops.. Police on the other hand see dozens of the bloody
things, over and over again.

It's very easy to see how they could become jaded about alarms, and I would
expect the typical duty officer would view "I phoned into my alarm,
and
listened in on the house with the microphone built in to the keypads"
with
about as much interest, or for that matter, with as much comprehension as
the typical SWMBO listening to the difference between gigabytes and
gigahertz.

>I couldn't give a **** about any material possessions but was more
worried
what
>some thief might do to my dog.

understandable: I know that most of my friends with pets would similarly be
more concerned about the safety of their pets than of the Telly.
Personally,
I would just be happy if they didn't torch the place.

> The public pays for the police through taxes. I expect to get some
kind of
protection when >I need it (and in my case it wasn't an obvious false
alarm - I listened repeatedly to the alarm >log, and 'listened-in'
before
deciding I should contact them).

You didn't need it. It was a false alarm.  Had the police attended, it's
entirely possible that someone else in real danger could have gone without
assistance, with terrible consequences.

>I shouldn't have to pay for a private monitoring service but neither do
I
expect them to
>attend every false alarm (only the ones where the user seriously
believes
there's a problem,
>whether it turns out to be a false alarm or not).

But how can they tell? It's like user support: everyone *always* thinks
their own problem is real, and more pressing than the next guys.

Someone like intamac offer a professional view: they probably see more
alarm
triggers than most of us will see in a lifetime, and can get to know the
patterns, get a gut feel for a "real" trigger rather than a false
alarm.

In any case, this wasn't meant to be a flame-bait. I can appreciate the
fear
and worry till you got home.

Ian.