Project "Our Hive": Home Security

Ok, it's time for some updates on the house. The last time I wrote, I mentioned that the furnitures were coming in and indeed they were. Although there was a small hiccup with the delivery for the bed in our master bedroom. The hiccup was sorted last Friday, on the last day of the year 2010. Shah and I ended the year 2010 by spending the whole day at the new house. My mom told us that it is good to recite the whole Surah Al-Baqarah when first moving in to a new house. So, Shah recited the whole surah while I recited the surah Yassin. Hence, with this, we pray that Allah will bless our home and protect us from harm. However, as Allah has always reminded us, we must do our part (i.e. ikhtiar) and not just leave it all to Allah (i.e. tawakkal). Thus, to help us protect ourselves, we think that a home security system is a necessity.

Picture from ADT

So, we have decided that we will go with ADT for our home security system. ADT's main business for home security is in the monthly Customer Monitoring System by which they will monitor our house whenever there is an alarm due to burglary. They will call us and enquire on whether it was a false alarm or if there is actually a burglar in the house. If they are unable to speak to us after caling twice, ADT will immediately contact the local police station.

The system also has a panic button and also emergency buttons for fire and ambalance. So if there was a fire in the house or an accident, we just have to press the button and they will call us to verify the emergency before helping us to contact the nearest fire brigade or ambulance. Another feature which Shah and I think is very useful is the 'Duress' monitoring. Let's say a burglar comes in and forces us to disarm the alarm, then we can use the Duress code to disarm the alarm. ADT will immediately be alerted that we have entered the Duress code by force because it is different to the normal disarm code. Therefore, they will immediately call the police.

For comprehensive security of a regular terrace house, the Safety Advisor recommends the ADT Home Saver 3 package of RM 1786 which includes a smoke detector, 12 window vibration or door sensors, 2 motion detectors, an indoor siren, 2 keypads, the control panel and back-up battery. The one-off installation charge is RM 299. ADT's profit mainly comes from the monthly payment for the Customer Monitoring System which will costs RM 75 per month for a contract of 3 years. ADT also has two othe Home Saver packages which cost RM 650 and RM 1670 but they will provide less number of burglar detection points for the house.

Shah and I think that in the world we are living in now, investing money on a reliable home security system is worth every penny. It is better to be safe than sorry.