Our house was broken into a few weeks ago---in broad daylight---while we were away. We don't own the place, we rent, and it has an alarm system. We pay the monitoring fees.
Since the break-in, I've learned a couple things about alarm systems. If you get the monitoring, you most likely need a radio- or cellular-based backup. At least with our system and monitoring company, the monitoring is through an old school, land-line phone line. It doesn't take a very sophisticated intruder to cut the wire to the phone service, which would render the monitoring useless. This is where the radio backup comes into play. (And none of this stuff is cheap. Basic monitoring is $30/month, plus $20/month for radio backup, plus $17/month for the most basic AT&T landline we can get. And this is with a "cheap" monitoring company, big names like ADT and Brinks cost even more.)
Another thing: we have window and door sensors, and motion sensors. We have cats so we can't use the motion sensors. The window sensors only sound if the window is
opened, not if they are broken. In our case, the intruder broke-in through a window, then set the alarm off when they opened the back door. So we paid some real money to have glass-break sensors installed.
Furthermore, the window sensors are not hard-wired, and are therefore wireless and require batteries. The alarm system lets you know when batteries are low, and in fact will trip the alarm if they get too low. But it seems that the wireless system uses a fair amount of power, so we change batteries semi-regularly. For us, it's three AAA batteries per sensor. That's a lot of landfill waste.
Yes, it is. But have you ever had your house robbed? The physical items you lose aren't the worst part. It feels so violating to know that someone was in your house, going through your things, when you weren't there (or worse, when you were!). Honestly, if we were robbed in our current house I would move. I would never feel safe there again.
This. As far as break-ins go, ours was the "best case": we weren't home, and nothing was stolen or even broken (except the one window). And they were nice enough to shut the door behind them so the cats didn't run away. I thought about all my "stuff", and the thought of losing some or all of it doesn't really bother me. What bothers me a little is just the
time I'd have to spend dealing with insurance and the associated bureaucracy, and
time spent replacing the necessities.
But what bothers me a
lot is the thought of unscrupulous people breaking into our home. I'm guessing these were probably just petty thieves, but who knows? They could have been truly bad people willing to harm my family had we been home.
Right now, it's worth it to us to have the alarm and monitoring. But we do live in a major US city (though it is a nice neighborhood). I would definitely
feel safer in a suburb or smaller town. Perhaps emotion is clouding my judgement, but after the break-in, I'm not sure I'd ever feel safe not having and alarm with monitoring.