WOW! House alarm went off... How did you do?

My alarm is the same as the one in my pizza shop so when it goes off I can not know where the disturbance originates. Our bedrooms are all located together in a section of the house that is, for practical purposes, inaccessible from all but one direction. My kids are 5 and 3.
I have experienced several false alarms and zero real ones.
My response has and will always be the same. My Glock is in the gunvault next to my bed, my phone is next to it. I grab them both, check the hallway/kids rooms and wait there in safety for the alarm company to call. Once they tell me which zone is the problem, I can decide how to proceed, which so far has been a single, nonrecurring front motion, which means a spider, so I go kill the spider.
 
Our dog is our alarm - a hypersensitive yappy terrier.

When we started keeping him in the bedroom with us, he used to react to every light in the cul-de-sac. I decided to use these as opportunities to rehearse HD. I keep amplified shooter's muffs (easier than fumbling with hearing aids), SIG P238, and a tac light by the bed. The first two times I fumbled the muffs and had trouble finding the switch. By the fifth time, I had the whole routine down pat. I don't even attempt to clear the house, I let the dog run downstairs and listen in the upstairs hallway. If I don't hear him running or do hear the whine-bark which means something is intruding on his (our) territory, I'll fort up in the bedroom and call 911.

As he's gotten more used to sleeping with us, he's given us far fewer false alarms, and the ones that he does give have been reasonable (neighbor's daughter's boyfriend in the wrong driveway once, early morning delivery once).
 
Alarm went off once. Wife and I did a 'mad minute' and all was quiet after that.

Took weeks to patch all the holes in the walls.

Deaf
 
Deaf Smith said:
Took weeks to patch all the holes in the walls.
Click to expand...

I laughed hard, thank you. :D

Okay, so, I'm actually not at home. I'm in California, out of choice, and watching the house and the dog for family. I don't have a gun here, they do, but they are locked up. I have two 14 inch throwing knives, two 10 inch throwing knives, a 7 inch knife, and my "Baby" 12 inch fighter. Also, a pair of Kali sticks. Luckily this is a gated community, but that means little as the back wall can be jumped without anyone knowing. I've heard one odd sound so far, that wasn't the neighbors arguing. It sounded like trees rustling, so I took a peek outside, found nothing. I always keep my light handy, as well as my phone. The knives won't help me much, and I only keep the one handy... But it's all I have, and it's a good thing I know how to use it.:cool:
 
There is a huge difference between being a frightened nation and a prepared one.

It is entirely possible to be prepared and not live life scared of everything. I am prepared and because of that I see no reason to live in a constant state of fear that the bad guys, zombies, alliens, or whatever, will get me. You know like the boogey man from when we were kids.
 
No battle drills yet

In the Army, we had battle drills to deal with many contingencies. In my civilian world, it is not as easy and the rules of engagement are a lot different. I am not at my best when I am asleep. In the past, it has helped to have a larger dog who can take point. However, when it comes to hearing the intruder, the big dogs seem to sleep as heavily as I do. The mix I came up with may seem strange, but I went with Shih Tsus as the alarm dogs, since they are unbelievably alert even in their sleep. They would wake up our English Mastiff, who would respond. They made such a great team.

I just cannot count on waking fast enough without a decent early warning system.

I do security checks after everyone else is in bed. The kids have a tendency to leave doors unlocked despite my warnings. Also, if people are watching, they may notice someone is moving around.

I usually carry a Glock 27 with night sights and a Crimson Trace LaserGuard, loaded with Speer 180 GR HP. My flashlight is 180 lumens and has strobe and dim settings. I also carry two extra magazines. I keep this all bedside.

Realistically, in my area, everyone in armed and has dogs and only someone with a death wish would do a home invasion. Typically, the breaking happen during the daytime, when people are at work. In those cases, you might bump into someone who has broken in. I always come home armed and alert.

I have cleared houses several times, though not in a long time. It is way easier with a dog who takes commands. They can smell where an intruder is. The first time I did this was when I was maybe 13 and our dog and I both thought something was wrong. He moved ahead searching as I followed with a rifle. Luckily, we found nobody there.

Now, we have kids that like to lurk around after bedtime. That adds some risk to the reaction. In past years, we had a teenager who would go out after we were in bed and come back just before school. That added the risk of possible open doors and her sneaking around the house at strange hours. Now she is grown and has her own place and kids to worry about.

Things can get complex when there are others around. We have a newborn now too and my wife is lurking around in the dark at all sorts of hours.

All of this points to my conclusion that a couple alert dogs and one or two large dogs in the house is a good start.
 
My wife and I had just gotten to bed and asleep around 2300-2315. I wake up to our female German Shepherd snarling, barking, and banging against the rear sliding glass door. Our male GSD joins in immediately afterwards. If her extreme level of aggression wasn't enough to throw the red flag, then the male joining in was.

I immediately threw on a pair of shorts while telling my wife to stay put, grabbed my M&P40 from the nightstand, the LED flashlight next to it, and started to move towards the dogs.

The dogs continued to lunge at the door while I did a quick sweep of the downstairs towards the rear door. I turned on the rear lights and sent the dogs out for them to double check while I stood watch from the door. They immediately went after someone who was busy sprinting across the neighbors' yards far far away from the two angry GSDs and suddenly away homeowner.

I called the dogs bag, locked the door, and reported it in. After that I did a quick sweep of the house again and went to bed. I told my wife about the details later, and was promptly smacked upside the head for not telling her the dogs were actually alerting to someone and not spooking.

Lessons learned:
  • Trust my dogs
  • Get a tac light to attach to my gun
  • Have my cell phone ready as well
  • Keep one dog inside in case someone gets by me
  • Keep pants nearby since shorts don't have pockets
 
I live in apartment right outside DC, our neighborhood is not the safest place (you wouldn't know from the rent) and we have had quite a few bump in the night situations. Our apartment is pretty small, between the bedroom and the front door is about 10 feet. I keep a mossberg at my bedside and two revolvers on and in my night stand, one with a crimson trace grip. When I hear something that warrants investigation, I'll usually sit up in bed and pick up my 637 ct loaded with gold dot short barrels and just wait and listen.

After a min of waiting and listening, I'll set down the 637 and pick up the mossberg and surefire. My wife will wait in the bedroom with her P239 loaded with Gold dot 124gr standard pressure jhp.

The funny thing is, every time I jump up in the middle of the night, my wifes cat will follow me out into the rest of the apartment. If I just get up for a drink or to use the bathroom, she stays put. However, when I jump up and grab a pistol, she jumps up and creeps right along with me. Good ol' lucy always has my back...

b8e277cc-6915-8c2e.jpg
 
Haha...I know what you mean about kids, i scared mine so bad he wet himeself and I think thats why he hates my AR. it was 0130 on a fri/sat and I heard a bump in the kitchen. I grabbed the AR with a 210 lumen surfire on it and noticed nothing in the hall/living room turn right into the kitchen blast the light and its my at the time 4 year old son eating cheetos...the cheetos went everywhere i lowered the weapon and ran to him picked him up and set him back in his bed my wife comes out the bedroom like why is he crying, and why did he **** himself? I was all amped up but calming down as I explained what happened...check the bedrooms if you have kids. learned my lesson. To this day when I get the AR out for anything he goes in the other room, poor guy.
 
we have a good alarm and false alarms are very rare. I get that funny feeling when it goes off. my wife and I share a safe word too in case one of us is up while the other comes downstairs in the middle of the night or something. We have many windows, all doors and their is a motion detector too. at bedtime it is on 'instant' so there is no delay before the alarm goes off(if I open the door from work I will have a brief period of time to eneter the code after breaching the alarm.

I would stay upstairs with the family, and the alarm people will call. They can tell me immediately what has been breached: they can say basement window, motion detector inside, garage door, etc. Basically, I would know immediately if this was for real or not. That's when I tell them to send police.
 
Eight years back, I had an actual incident involving an intruder. I was married at the time and lived in a very nice area known as Rosemont (basically part of Old Town Alexandria, VA outside of DC). The stealth motion detection sensor in the back of the house chimed into the master bedroom. I kept my Mossberg 500 under the bed within reach and was easily able to grab it. I knew where the motion was since that was the only sensor I needed since the bedroom was on the front of the house.

I got up, grabbed my gun, told my wife to follow me and immediately dial 911 from her cell and give the police our address, stay near the front porch and stay on the line with them until you hear some sort of confirmation one way or the other.

She heard a confirmation alright. She heard the notorious shotgun chick-chick sound and me yelling to walk backwards slowly and that I'd blow the guy fcvking in half if he even so much as tripped. The wife was on the phone crying. The guy was screaming for me to let him go. He finally got on the ground face down and hands behind his head. I had the gun on him the whole time. House was surrounded by 10 police cars. They had a gun pointed at the dirtbag so I put the gun down and also got on the ground. Once the police found out who the bad guy was, they were pretty nice to me.

End of story...It's not like the movies. It's very traumatic even if you're the one in control. I still don't sleep as soundly as I used to.
 
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That's why I'm not a fan of weapon mounted lights for most ordinary citizen use. When you hear a bump in the night, you have no business pointing the gun everywhere you look in a home you share with family members. Never point the gun at anything you are not willing to shoot. If you are not willing to shoot your own 4-year-old son, your home defense plans should not include pointing the gun at noises you haven't identified.

pax
 
+1 to pax's comment.

Also, just curious, because I don't agree with it, not saying I am the one that's right, but.....a rifle round being potentially used in a house?? I think this could go south or become an entire new thread, but, if you were to illuminate bad guy (A), he has a weapon and/or makes threating gestures (B), you use the weapon (C), where is the round going if you miss, neighbor, adjoining room(s) (D)??
 
i think you did really well... the only thing i ever say is that as you will wake up half startled and groggy always keep the safety on until you actually see something as you cant undo bad mistakes.
 
interesting situation.

What do you do when you wake up at 0300hrs, turn the lights on and see a red dot stable about 18 inches above your head. The SO response time is 4 hours if ever.

I turned the lights off dropped to the floor. My wife rolled out of bed to the floor. She grabbed the Mossburg and I grabbed my 1911. (now keep a loaded AR 15 next to my bed and a loaded 338 Win close at hand.)

My friend, an ex marine sniper and legend in the SPEC OPS World, and I tracked a sniper team to their hide. The hide was 800 yards from my front window. They had all ready deded and we were left with footprints, crushed grass and the spot were they had set their bipods.

Word of advice don't ever upset the Pinal County Sheriff.
 
I don't have an alarm, but I do have a particularly noisy beagle. If he goes off at night and I haven't heard any suspicious noises, I investigate, armed, while my wife prepares to call 911 on the old cell phone we keep in the bedroom for emergencies. He's usually upset that a skunk is using our backyard to get from one place to another, but you never know. If I'm really concerned, we'd stay in the bedroom and call 911 for help, but I can't call the cops every time he barks or we'd have a patrol car in the driveway 24-7.
 
Middle of the night.

New house, new appliances. Loudest ice maker in the world, I thought the front door had been kicked in at 1 AM.:eek:

Pity the poor intruder into my house, Castle Law ( I feared for my life officer), old 45 will digest any load, I,m to old to fist fight and I sleep in the buff and clear the house the same way I got out of bed.:D

Hows that for a visual image?:cool:
 
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