Just buy the yard sign and call it good...

http://popular.ebay.com/misc-a-b/adt-yard-signs.htm

Waste of money IMO.

this is probably the best advice.

That is well covered. The prior home owners put an ADT sticker in every window and three signs in the flower beds. I called the local PD before I bought the house and there have been no robberies in the area in the last 10 years, so they may just have been a touch paranoid.

They keep calling and offering free installation in exchange for putting a sign in the front yard.


not sure what the catch is, but i'm sure there will be

My home was broken into about 20 years ago. The f-ers didn't get much, but it pissed me off. When the police were here they did the usual walk-through but there wasn't much they could do.

About a week later I got a call from the police department and they wanted to talk about home security. Cool! I asked them about the ADT's of the world and the like. They said, "don't waste your money." There's such a long delay between an alarm being tripped and an officer showing up the bad guys will just walk away.

They told me to buy an unmonitored system that is loud. The signs in the yard, the stickers on the door are a big deterrent, and IF they do try to break in they'll be met by flashing lights and a really loud horn.

I know at my place of employment we have a monitored system with cameras, but it also has a siren. Outside of the cameras I know that the siren would be more of a deterrent than anything. I may go this route with the homestead, still mulling it over.

I have a ground level window that goes into the basement. Kick out a pane of glass, flip a lever, slide the window and step down, and you're in my house and I'm asleep two floors above. Horrible design feature that I, as a first-time homebuyer, didn't think about. Only certain units have basements, and the model units didn't. I had already signed my life away before I had my first "holy shit look at that window" moment.

Is it a huge deal where I live? Probably not. But there are some Section 8 apartments filled with Section 8 scumbags in the area, and living in Chicago for as long as I did sort of ruined me when it comes to having trust in my fellow man.

Put a grate over it and either weld it or lock it down.

Yep. Even one of ADT's own commercials shows a guy breaking in, the alarm sounds and he runs off...so I'm wondering what in the hell is the point of the monitoring.

If someone breaks into your house to kill you, the person in the ADT monitoring center isn't going to be of any help.

I do and I'm happy with it, but I think if someone were to be deterred from my house, it'd be because of a loud bark, not an ADT sign.

wonder if there is a way to hook up a horn from a train to go off.
bet that shit would work.

I have an ADT alarm system but it isn't hooked up to a monitoring service. It does have a 130 dB siren, however.

I also have a rather alert and protective dog.

Apparently you don't spend much time perusing the gun thread. :)