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

Nope, like I said I'm too old to fist fight. I figure if me showing up starkers with an old 45 in my hand doesn't make the intruder want to leave, he needs shooting.:D Or he is blind.:cool: Did you know if you polish the muzzle of your weapon it makes the bore look bigger? And when it is pointed at someone in the dark it appears to shine, :eek: that is what an OKC officer told me once over coffee. Yes the muzzle of his carry weapon had the bluing removed and was highly polished.
 
My home alarm went off two days ago at 3AM. It took 15 seconds to gather my thoughts, get the eyes focused, get the 1911 and flashlight off of the nightstand, went to the Alarm Pad, read the zone which was the great room which is next to the bedroom one floor down with a 2 story ceiling. I remotely turned all lights on in the great room (X-25 Remotes all over the house), I pied the corner of the door out of the bedroom and looked down on the 4 windows in that zone and all looked secure. I turned the alarm off, called the monitoring station and told them all was well. The issue was two of the windows were not locked and over a period of time moved enough for one of the contacts to open. I secured both windows. It took more than a half hour to get back to sleep. My wife and I are the only two in the house so covering the house with a gun is not an issue for me. Later that day I re-checked the locking of all of the other windows.
 
The only house alarm we have is my wife’s little yappy dog. It is not much threat to a burglar but it is very good at sounding the alarm if there is any problem. The only time I ever heard my "alarm" was about 1:15am on a hot summer night and the dog starts going nuts. I then hear a crash.

My wife calls 911 and I grab the guns (Remington 870 with 00 buck Shot and my S&W 640 I slipped in to my pajama pocket) As quietly as I could I got the kids in to our room, and waited for the cops. This whole time I hear occasional crashes. I was praying that I did not have to use my gun. Other than my family there is nothing in the house worth dying for. I all so saw my wife had the Marlin 1894C close at hand (The gun safe is in our bed room)

Well about 35 min later the Sherriff finally show up (did I mention I live out in the middle of no where?). He goes through the house and then I hear him swear really loud then start laughing. I was relieved to hear him laugh. I announce my presence very loudly so the police would know it was me and not an intruder, and walk down the stairs. That is when I see it. Our intruder was a Raccoon and it had made a real mess of things. I don’t think the raccoon was intimidated by the dog (we use to keep it locked the laundry room at night). The reason the sherrif was swearing was he has steped in some milk left on the floor and all most slipped.

As far as how I handled it. I don’t know what I could have done better. I did have to leave my room to get the kids as the wife called 911. I brought the kids to the bed room as quietly as possible and waited for the police. I was ready to shoot any thing that came through the door and my wife stayed on the line with the police the entire time.
 
While staying at my new house, I got one "bump in the night." It's just the wife and me along with 2 cats, so I'm used to hearing the cats chasing and such. Problem was both cats were on the bed and craning their necks and staring intently at the other side of the house where the sound came from. I suspected the mud room, where the back door is, though there is 2 locks along with a knob brace. I investigated with my EDC and flashlight (Kimber UCDP and Ray-O-Vac Sportsman Extreme) and it was indeed the mud room. A box had fallen off the top of one of the cupboards I had yet to install. We're slowly moving and boxes are common, but putting them where they can fall unannounced is not. The cupboards have since been installed and I make sure boxes aren't sitting haphazardly. I'm sure I could improve, but overall, I think I did OK, though I was terrified.
 
To be critical... I do not consider creeping around looking for a potential bad-guy to be a good plan, and certainly not with someone in tow. I know it wasnt your home but I would never have a alarm that couldnt be quickly silenced from the master bedroom. I want to have a alarm that will wake me but once awake, I want to be able to hear, think and communicate easily. I agree with you that the concern over fumbling around with condition 1,2 or 3 is exactly the reason I selected a revolver for the nightstand.
 
Last edited:
It's all about planning ahead

False alarms are great training opportunities. That's when you find out what you don't know.

I had a similar issue happen about 8 years ago. Same thing, I was sound asleep when the alarm went off.

But, I had planned for that, so I knew where my HK .45 with weapon light was (I don't care what you say, my home defense weapon will ALWAYS have a light on it!). My pattern is to have a full magazine and an empty chamber. I need to be awake enough to rack the slide before I can shoot the gun.

But I also sprang for a decent alarm system and all bedrooms have a alarm keypad in them.

My first step (after getting the gun) was to go to the keypad and the display tells me "GARAGE MOTION". I wait for another 10 seconds - and no other alarm.

So now I knew what area to check first. And since there were no secondary alarms, I could tell that there wasn't anyone else anywhere else.

I stopped to put on pants because I didn't want to be found dead in my house wearing nothing but Simpsons boxer shorts :)

It turned out to be nothing - probably a mouse or something. I have since tweaked the system to keep that from happening.

There's a lot of places in our lives where we can save money. But if you are going to have an alarm - splurge a little.
 
Deaf Smith

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
Click to expand...

Similar situation for me, only one bullet hole though, where the alarm used to be.
 
Huh?

That was my response upon hearing the alarm, and my wife's response upon my telling her the alarm went off.
Our 85 lb doberman sleeps on the first floor and he wasn't barking, but I grabbed my glasses, Fenix TK-11 and my HK USP .40 from my bedside and cleared the house. If that didn't work, my scary body would have done the job because the only thing I forgot to grab was clothes.
 
Last week my "alarm" went off. My boxer was barking and growling something fierce. I looked out of the window and I saw some guy had backed a moving van up- my driveway and was lined up with my basement door. Apparently he heard the barking and had gave up his plan to spoil our Christmas and had just gotten back in the truck to leave. Lucky for him he didn't come in the house.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top