Home security

I am involved with our local residents committee and last Wednesday night I was dragged to a local community policing meeting.
Surprisingly, I found it quite interesting and picked up a few tips.
Firstly as motorhomer, we are gone a good bit, so the house needs to be secure. In fairness to the regional crime officer giving the presentation he was very pragmatic with simple solutions.
Good neighbours was essential. Move the car daily, bring in bins and put out bins, even empty ones, etc.
Avail of the insulation grants, and upgrade the windows and door to triple glaze and insulated composite doors. Both have 7 point locking and give the window fitter a few extra euro, the outer pane will be laminated to avoid smashing.
Light the place up like a xmas tree but one step further. Have motion sensor lights outside but also fit in a timer switch with a 10 minutes on every so often. Very often a kid is sent in for a response, but the occasional light on can confuse the watcher.

Of course the gold plated, motion detection alarm with live monitoring got a good talk.

Marking your mobile property, power tools, etc. Use your eircode/ postage code. A simple 6 or 7 digit code engraved into your property in a visible area renders the resale value void.

The most important point made all night, don't shoot anyone. That is the armed response unit job.

Hopefully others here will throw in a few other points to help us to secure our properties and then a list can be made, much to Ally's delight !!!!!

Malcolm

Some very good points there Malcolm, did they mention Dogs? We have a German Shepard, a Elk Hound and a Gun. touch wood we were never touched but our neighbors on both sides of us have been targeted on a few occasions.
Security while away in the van is always a concern, we always store the van out of sight so when away it is not missed and the cars are in the yard. I usually take a back road avoiding going through the local village when going away in the Van too

Like Chausson we have 2 dogs, a monitored alarm,and we have sensor lights around the house. Both houses on either side of were done, and no one seen anything. On one side, the house was broken into when our neighbour went to collect his granddaughter from school. He was gone approx 25 minutes. Scum got away with a couple of grand in cash, holiday money he had only taken out of the credit union. I thought that highly suspicious.
On the other side, side window was jemmied and house was upended, but didnt get much. Those neighbours, with young kidsfound it hard to settle in for a long time after. Took the cops 2 days to turn up to both houses to do forensics, so i wouldnt be depending on the ARU to come round and shoot your burglar.
Our dogs go ballistic once or twice during the year, during the early hours, so i presume we have visitors. I totally agree about the not shooting them, tazer works nicely.

One of THESE and a few of THESE are an excellent combination.
You can have a two-way conversation via the doorbell with anyone who approaches, (as seen on TV).
The Arlo units are excellent for remote positioning and can give a full view of the house and gardens as no wiring is required, the batteries (rechargeable) last up to three months depending on how often the camera is activated by the built-in motion sensor and whether or not the infrared is turned on.

Oh! and of course a properly maintained alarm system which is monitored by a professional monitoring company.

"Did they mention dogs"
Yes, along with a list of prohibited breeds, dog controls including considering your neighbours mental health for continuous barking dogs. The feeling of the meeting was that smaller dog breeds were sharper at detection.

The duty of care under the occupiers act ( can't remember the particular law) basic outline that the property owner has a duty of care towards all people entering their property. Gone is the razor wire, broken glass cemented into the wall, etc.

The telephone system of garda stations has been reorganised. Should your local station fail to answer, your call will be transferred to a central call centre and your query or report will be logged onto the pulse system.

Malcolm

Padraig Nally has not been bothered since

I think it's different in rural areas where, as chausson says, if someone is on your property at night it's not because they stumbled off the footpath. We're fairly remote here and we're plagued with thefts thankfully we haven't been targeted but we have 2 large dogs and CCTV. I know people who some conveniently placed heavy blunt objects dotted around their property!

When I was growing up in rural West of Ireland our front door lock didn’t work. Was that way for years

probably a starter pistol

some good advice there
dawn to dusk lighting is a much better job than sensor lighting

Everybody needs an EMILEA. They can be store bought or self assembled. I have only had to show mine, to observe a distinct reluctance to proceed with a trespass

we've just purchased this it has 8 cameras which will cover the house and yard

Why is that Martin. Does that just apply to that model?

are you telling me its illegal for me to put a camera outside my house?

You can install in your own property but you cannot install for the public.
Typical of our short sighted government twits, got nothing to do with ability rather their ability to collect revenue from any source they can.
Wired my own house and workshops, plumbed them, installed monitored alarm, fire alarms, security cameras, electric gates and everything else possible....... all of which would now be illegal to do for the public but it’s not if it is your own personal property.

If that law is actually worded c.c.t.v. which as we all know is closed circuit television it wouldn't apply to web-based cameras which interface with the cloud and are not c.c.t.v. with a monitored or standalone recording device as is commonly understood.

Also, web-based cameras with cloud-based storage do not have any recording device on the premises, which is usually the first thing to be searched for and taken by thieves. As thieves approach they are recorded to the cloud even before they get to the camera to nick or disable it.
You do however need half decent broadband and decent WiFi.

When my kit is in active mode as soon a person gets to within about 10 metres of a camera they're being recorded to the cloud and I get an instant email message with a clip of the recording. greater detection distance is available on hard-wired (power) versions but mine are rechargeable batteries.

My security around the house has always been, surprise and shock. It has always worked well and I think always will.

Designed to make as much noise and surprise to someone that shouldn't be there as is possible. Starting off with CCTV and Security lighting, which are always good and always a deterrent, but easily overcome with Balaclavas, I appreciate most thefts are opportunist, hence why the above works.

For those more planned burglaries or armed robberies I have a second wave of surprise. It involves infra-red beams linked to other devices that would scare the life out of you. Designed by myself but not fitted or installed by myself as I don't have the capability.

Basically you do not get near my property or can attempt to break in without first me knowing you are there, I will be awake, dressed and armed before you get that far. You will also be disorientated and I would think most would decide it's not worth the risk.

Why such security? I ran the pub next door, everyone knew I did. Pubs used to be a huge target for the obvious reasons and I wanted it so that if I was going to have a gun in my face I'd know about it before any would be assailant had any idea I was aware.

I don’t know if that is correct or not. I do know cameras for calving are exempt as they are not for security purposes. I think that’s the catch, if they are for security purposes, however the recording is done, it’s supposed to be installed by a psa approved installer. I remember at the start that were saying we couldn’t even do our own, no matter about payments. Maybe that got watered down. Rob if it was me, I’d put up what you want, and feign ignorance in the very unlikely event someone turns up at your door

Nothing personal Daffysparks, but are you saying the law required a Private Security Authority approved installer must be employed to install ONE OF THESE