There is a big difference between residential burglaries in Vancouver and those in Whistler.

While the typical residential burglary in the city follows a consistent pattern that starts with a kicked-in front door, most thefts in Whistler seem to be committed by people with access to both a key and alarm code.

Coming home to a burglarized home is a lot more obvious when your front door has been kicked in. In Whistler, just because your door is locked and your alarm is armed doesn’t mean all of your belongings are exactly as you left them.

Three recent stories from clients (each of which occurred before they became Provident clients in Whistler) illustrate some of the security risks for Whistler, or vacation properties anywhere…

The ‘Who the hell are you?’ incident…

A Whistler homeowner who lives in the United States happened to be in Vancouver on a recent weekend. When their Saturday night plans fell through, they decided to head up to their Whistler cabin rather than stay in a hotel downtown.

When they walked through their front door in Whistler a little after 11pm, they were shocked to find their home already occupied. After a curt exchange of “who are you’s?”, it was determined that the people in the home were not burglars. It turned out they were renters who had paid in full for a week in the cabin.

It wasn’t a burglary, it was fraud.

To the surprise of the owner, their trusted, long-time cleaning lady had been renting out their cabin for several years. Because she had always been privy to the actual rental schedule, given she did pre & post cleans, she was able to develop a lucrative side gig of renting the cabin out on Craigslist for cash.

The ‘How was the wine?’ incident…

An owner arrived in Whistler and was dismayed to see two empty bottles from his special collection of wines (the cheaper of which was worth about $650) in the recycling bin. Given the fact that he was not using the alarm system at the time of the incident, he had no way of knowing who had accessed his home and enjoyed his wine.

The ‘That’s disgusting’ incident…

The third incident involved another client who arrived at their Whistler home to find their hot tub broken and a few things out of place inside the house. What really set the owners off, however, was finding a condom wrapper under the bed in their master bedroom.

With a lockbox outside the house, the code for which is known by several local service providers, determining who was ‘enjoying’ their home in their absence was not possible.

In my experience, the attitude towards security in Whistler tends to be on the extremes… people seem to be either incredibly security conscious and want to put every possible measure in place, or they leave a key in a lockbox, subscribing to the idea that “there’s nothing to steal anyways”.

As more incidents like these occur, people are tending to move from the ‘there are no security issues in Whistler’ camp, directly to the ‘we have a major security problem in Whistler’ camp. The reality is that the risk in Whistler is very easy to manage. Crooks are taking advantage of the most basic weaknesses in people’s security.

The solutions are simple:

1. Stop sharing your alarm code.

Every user of your alarm system should have a unique code. There is no reason to share user codes.

Right now is a perfect time to change your alarm codes. All of them.

Provident can remotely add, modify or delete user codes for your alarm at anytime upon your request. We can also provide detailed user reports that outline exactly who accessed your home, and when, at any time (or set up a regular report to be emailed to you every day, week, month or other frequency you would prefer).

Click here to learn why controlling alarm codes is such an important first step.

2. Get rid of your lockbox.

While it may be convenient to have a lockbox outside your Whistler home, there is very little security. Given that most Whistler homeowners are away from their homes for extended periods of time (or most of the time), there is little stopping an unscrupulous service provider who has been given access to your lockbox once (or gained easy access using a hammer) from making a duplicate copy for future use.

Provident provides 24/7 key control and can respond at any time to provide a key to anyone who requires legitimate access to your home. There is no need to leave your keys, unsecured, outside your home.

Everyone likes to be able to trust people, but nobody likes to be taken advantage of. By making it clear, up front, that you take security seriously in your Whistler home (by ensuring each of your service providers understand that the alarm code you give them is unique to them and will create an indelible record) our experience has been that people have far fewer problems than those who simply hope for the best and assume that everyone they deal with will be completely honest with them.

Our first Preventing Burglary seminar of the fall will be held in our Kerrisdale Showroom this Thursday, September 29th at 6:45pm.

In addition to learning exactly how residential burglaries occur on the Westside (and what you can do to eliminate your risk of being a victim of one), we’ve added a lot of new content such as how to use your burglar alarm to detect flooding as well as how to integrate your alarm with your heating system to reduce your energy costs each month.

Our seminars are always well attended and are a lot more fun & interesting than you would imagine a seminar on home security would be. Trust us. You should come. Bring your neighbours.

In addition to walking out with actionable steps that will have an immediate positive impact on your home security, we will also have some great wine from our friends at Le Vieux Pin Winery and cheese from Benton Brothers Cheese in Kerrisdale.

After the seminar (which will last about an hour), we’ll lead a tour through our 24/7 Operations Centre so that you can see what is on the other end of all of our client’s alarms and camera systems.

To RSVP, please click here.

Bring along a friend or neighbour and learn why five-minute proofing is the most effective measure you can take to improve your home security as well as why several of the tactics you are probably already using may be having the opposite effect that you intended.

Here’s what past attendees of our seminar have said:

“I particularly liked reiteration of the information about how to delay a burglar for 5 minutes. The tour of the operations facility was very interesting and confidence building”.

“I felt at ease. Information was useful.”

“I found it interesting and informative and I’m sure others would as well …. whether they have a system or not. It helps to stay current with crime trends and security options.”

“with all the home security advertising, I think it can be somewhat confusing for people and your session helped to clear up some issues”

We hope to see you on Thursday! Click here to RSVP.

Given that the majority of our new clients come to us AFTER they’ve been the victim of a burglary (and learned that the security they thought they had in place didn’t work as expected), we recently launched a new website at AreYouPayingEnough.com to help get people to think about their home security proactively.

We built the site to point out the differences between Provident Security and every other provider. The most important of which is the fact that Provident is the only company that guarantees to be at your door within five minutes.

One of the key elements in our ability to provide immediate response is that we own and operate our own central monitoring station in Kerrisdale. Because we monitor our own alarms, we are able to control every single step in our process… from the alarm being tripped in your home all the way through to our response team member arriving at your door within five minutes.

We filmed a few different videos for the site, including the one below which takes you on a quick tour of our 24/7 Kerrisdale Operations Centre… you can view the other clips on the AreYouPayingEnough site…

As stated in the video, we lead regular tours through our Operations Centre and we’d be happy to show you around. The best time to come for a tour is after one of our regular Preventing Burglary seminars. The seminars are held in our Kerrisdale showroom and afterwards we lead a tour through our Operations Centre so that you can see exactly what happens behind the scenes at Provident. The next seminar is on June 22, you can RSVP by clicking here.

If that date doesn’t work for you, please give us a call at 604.664.1087 or just drop by at 2309 West 41st Avenue anytime… we’d be happy to show you around.

The NY Times printed an article by Paul Sullivan on Saturday called ‘Weighing the Value of a Home Alarm System‘.

In the article, Sullivan points out one of the central tenets of this blog over the past six years… that the most important reason for paying for a monitored alarm is to generate an immediate response.

Sullivan argues that given a very high false alarm rate (he suggests 80% of alarms are false – although my experience puts that figure much closer to 98%) most Police departments cannot, or will not, provide priority response.

His article should give a lot of people reason to question the ‘value’ that they are receiving from their alarm.

Unfortunately, for the vast majority of alarm owners, the reality is even worse than what Sullivan describes.

Sullivan’s article is focused on the following five major points:

1. Issues with power failures;
2. Slow Police response times;
3. Insurance Discounts
4. Deterrent value is outweighed by cost of an alarm
5. Getting more than just burglary detection from an alarm

[This post addresses the first two points above... I'll post my comments on the last three issues later this week.]

Sullivan is correct in all of his criticisms about how most alarms work. However, not all companies handle these common issues in the same way.

Here are my thoughts on each of his points…

POWER FAILURES: “People may be surprised to learn that when they most need their security system to protect their house, they oftentimes cannot rely on it. Jackie Ostrander discovered that when a storm knocked out power to her home in Greenwich, Conn., for a week in March — too long for her backup battery to keep going. And it took her security company three weeks to restart her system.”

Virtually every alarm system on the market has the ability to communicate that power has been lost as well as if the back-up battery is low.

At Provident, we set-up all of our clients’ alarms to send every possible signal, not just alarms. As a result, as soon as power is interrupted, we receive a signal from each of our affected clients. Once the back-up battery starts to get low (after approximately 6-8 hours on most alarms that we’ve installed) the alarm will send us another signal.

At that point, we will attempt to contact our client to confirm that they are home and ask if they would like to replace the battery and/or implement additional security measures (such as mobile patrols or posting a guard) while the power is out. If we cannot get a hold of them, we will respond to the home and replace the back-up battery.

Most of our clients have standing instructions with us telling us what to do in the event that we cannot reach them.

The ‘power failure’ issue is really a ‘response issue’ and can be easily solved.

POLICE RESPONSE TIMES: “There are about 36 million security systems in the United States, half of them in homes. Revenue for the industry was $28.2 billion in 2009, according to the Installation Business Report, an annual security industry survey. So a lot of people apparently think their homes are going to be impervious to burglars.

But even when the systems are working properly, the police response times can be slow.

Stan Martin, executive director of the Security Industry Alarm Coalition, acknowledged as much. He said that in big cities like New York, Atlanta and Chicago, police could take 30 to 45 minutes to respond, while in smaller towns the best that could be hoped for was six to eight minutes.”

The truth is that in many cities, large and small, Police Departments are making the decision to not respond at all. For example, Police do not respond in Whistler, Salt Lake City or Fremont, California. Other cities, like Seattle, have implemented a misleadingly titled program called ‘Enhanced Call Verification‘.

Of those Police Departments that still respond, the response time is often far longer than just “30-45 minutes”. In Vancouver, the latest Patrol Deployment study showed that the average Police response time to an alarm is 2 hours and 6 minutes.

Sullivan goes on to point out that even when the Police do respond, it’s hardly a complete ‘service’…

“To combat false alarms, many police departments charge after the first or second one, he [Martin] said. In Stamford, Conn., for instance, the cost is $75. Yet these fines are often levied when a police car just drives past your house, not even pulling in the driveway, let alone walking around the property.”

The fact is that the alarm industry has gotten away with providing an incomplete service for a very long time. What other industry is able to sell a service that relies on a government agency in order to provide any value?  The alarm industry is very much a parasite on the Police … at least the traditional model of delivering alarm ‘service’ certainly is.

The most important  reason for paying for alarm monitoring is to generate an immediate response. That’s it. An alarm provides information that has an incredibly short shelf life in order to be of any value.

If the alarm signal being received is a ‘low battery’, what can the Police do about it? In many cases, the Police do not even know that the alarm they are responding to was a battery issue rather than an actual burglary signal.

The Police do not hold house keys and often do not know what exactly is ‘in alarm’… they just get told that there is an ‘alarm’.

Click below to watch a video clip from one of our home security seminars where I explain how Police response actually works… and why any incident is most likely long over before the Police even first hear of an alarm, let alone get a chance to start responding to it.

This is why at Provident, we do not make any verification calls.

When an alarm trips, we send our response teams to provide immediate response. We hold keys and we know exactly what the alarm is reporting… and what to do to correct it. If the Police are required, we call 911 from the site and report a crime in progress… a call that results in very fast Police response.

We guarantee a five minute response, but we also work to educate our clients than a security alarm is NOT a security ‘system’. An alarm is one part of your overall ‘system’ and should not be relied on as a stand-alone security tactic. As far as effective security tactics go, nothing beats Five Minute Proofing.

Without effective ‘Five Minute Proofing’ in place, an alarm is unlikely to provide any real value in minimizing loss during a burglary. The good news? Many Five Minute Proofing strategies are either free or very low cost.

Click below to hear more about Five Minute Proofing…

INSURANCE DISCOUNTS, DETERRENT VALUE and GOING BEYOND SECURITY…

This post seemed like it was going to be far too long. Definitely too long for a single post. If you’re still reading this far down the page… Thank you.

I’ll post the balance of my thoughts on the points Sullivan raised  later this week.

Fox 12 in Portland reported a story today about a pair of burglars who Police believe may be posing as door-to-door Window Salesmen.

The video clip of the story implies that the impostors never got inside of the victim’s home, but a couple of days after their visit, a Portland homeowner had his safe targeted in a burglary.

Irrespective of who actually committed the burglary, the notable part of the story was the fact that the victim was keeping $13,000.00 cash in a safe that he had bolted down in his master bedroom closet.

Here’s an excerpt from the story…

On Tuesday, Lee said he found his home trashed. Thieves stole rare coins, jewelry and $13,000 from his safe. Lee said the burglars broke in through a door and used tools from his garage to break into his safe.

“I had it bolted to the floor,” he said. “Evidently, it wasn’t as safe as I thought it was.”

There are few lessons from this story… the first two are the same as in my post about the Apple Store in New Jersey getting emptied in 31 seconds:

(1) You CANNOT make it physically impossible for someone to break in; and

(2) Five-Minute Proofing is the most important security tactic.

Of course, the most fundamental lesson is that you should not keep large amounts of cash in your home… put it in the bank. If you decide that you want to keep cash at home, by all means, put it in a safe and bolt it down. But, if you do not have a monitored alarm that will alert responders that someone is trying to get at your safe… they can take as much time as it takes to remove it.

The time that it takes to remove a safe is a lot less than most people think. Safes, even really, really heavy safes, are only difficult to move around when you are trying to be careful not to damage the walls (or anything else). If you don’t care about making a mess or breaking anything, moving a safe isn’t that hard. Just ask Lindsay Lohan.

Relying on a safe, just like relying on an alarm, often provides a false sense of security. Your security is in your redundancy. It’s all about putting multiple steps/tactics/measures in place.

If you have a safe, but do not have it monitored, you might want to think about how important the things that you have inside of it are. You might be better off spreading your valuables all over your home rather than keeping them all together in one easily movable box.

SIDE NOTE: In the video, the reporter mentions that the homeowner thinks that the impostors were looking for “window burglar alarm tape” on the windows. That’s fairly unlikely given that foil is rarely part of an alarm system that has been installed in the past 25 years.

If they were looking at the windows, it’s much more likely that they were simply looking through them in order to see if there was anything of obvious value that was easily reachable inside.

If they were savvy enough to look for alarm equipment, they would have simply cut the telephone lines.

Channel 4 Action News in Pittsburgh ran a story last night about a burglary attempt in West Deer that was thwarted by a 10 year old boy.

The burglar ended up being 21 year old Brett Kreider, who lives in the same neighbourhood, who is now a suspect in 8 recent burglaries. As is often the case with most burglars, the accused burglar had just gotten out of jail… for burglary.

The M.O. of the burglar is almost exactly as I’ve laid out in previous posts about how the typical residential burglary happens… the fact that it ended up being a single person responsible for a ‘rash’ of burglaries is also typical.

Here are a few quotes from the story… (you can read the full story here)

The intruder ignored a dog, but when a 10-year-old boy spotted him and yelled at him to get out, he fled the scene.

[Police Chief Joe] Lape said the burglar had already broken into two other homes in the same neighborhood that day.Investigators said the burglar, who operates in broad daylight, usually takes pills, money, weapons and anything else of value that is easily carried away. He has also taken a truck from one of the eight homes police believe he’s burglarized

The really important lesson in the story, comes next…

Police said on one occasion the burglar knocked on a front door to see if anyone was home. When the door was answered, the burglar said he was looking for a dog and walked away.

This is what happens in almost every single burglary… before breaking in, the crook will first knock on the door to check if someone is home. If anyone answers, the crook will make up a quick story about why they are there and leave as quickly as possible.

The vast majority of burglars are not violent and are not looking for drama… if they were, they’d be robbing a bank or holding up a convenience store instead.

The most important advice about home security that you can give your kids, nannies, housekeepers or other people in your home is to NEVER IGNORE THE DOOR.

If someone knocks on your door, you should always let them know that someone is inside. Don’t open the door, but talk through it to let them know that the house is not empty. If you believe that the person at the door is in any way suspicious, call 911. If you live in Vancouver, you can also call us at 604.664.1087.

Barking dogs are rarely the deterrent that people think that they are. The fact is that most house pets, despite a good bark, are still house pets… and a motivated burglar can get by them without too much hassle. A human being, on the other hand, is almost always more trouble than they are worth… even if they are only 10 years old. In almost every case, a potential witness is far too much hassle and the potential crook will move on to the next unoccupied home.

I’ve written on this topic before on this blog back in 2006 with a post titled Answer the Door and another one in April after a Delta teenager ended up having to call 911 from a bedroom closet after a burglar had broken into her home after she ignored the knocking at the door.

A 14 year old in Delta is being commended for both keeping calm and acting quickly to help the Police catch a burglar in her home.

The teen was home alone when she heard someone at the front door… she ignored the knocking and ended up having to hide in the closet to call 911 while the crook went through the house – including into the room where she was hiding.

This story is only the latest example of why it is so important to always answer the door… without actually opening it.

Almost every burglar will first knock on the door to try and determine if someone is home… if they think it’s empty, they’ll break in.

If you have young children, babysitters, nannies or other people in your home, it is very important that they be told to always let the person at the door know that someone is home… but that they just can’t get to the door. At the very least, turn a light on so that a potential crook knows that the house isn’t empty.

If the person at the door doesn’t leave, call 911 immediately to report the incident… if you live West of Oak Street, you can also give us a call at 604.664.1087 and we’ll be happy to come by to check things out.

Click here to read about another similar case in Ohio last year.

Click below to watch a short clip where I describe how easy it is to add flood detection to your alarm system.

The city of Vancouver electrical code requires that every home has 120 volt smoke detectors installed before an Occupancy Permit will be issued. As a result, electricians will always install these ‘regular’ detectors in order to meet the code. Often, homeowners assume that those smoke detectors are being monitored by their alarm system… they rarely are.

Unfortunately, the city code does not yet recognize the superiority of having monitored, low voltage smoke detectors installed in your home.

What’s the difference between a ‘regular’ smoke detector and a monitored, low-voltage version?

Some of the advantages of a monitored, low-voltage smoke detector include:

• They are monitored through the alarm system… in the event of a fire (or the presence of smoke), we’ll know about it within seconds (even faster if you have BLINK);
• Because they are monitored through the alarm, a signal is sent to us to indicate that a detector has lost power or is using a back-up battery;
• the ability to pinpoint exactly which detector is in alarm;

By contrast, when the regular 120 volt detectors trip, they just make a noise… and if the power goes out, they will only last as long as the battery that you’ve installed in it (assuming it works).

This is why you often see homes with two smoke detectors side-by-side (like the photo below)… one is to meet the city electrical code… and one that is connected to the alarm system (either hardwired or wireless).

120Volt Smoke Detectors can be monitored… but are not the best way to go

While devices exist that allow us to connect your alarm to the 120 volt smoke detectors, we find that this practice invariably causes confusion later on… not the least of which is the fact that when any smoke detector in the house trips, all we know is that a fire alarm has tripped, not the exact location, or which specific detector, tripped. This is because 120 Volt detectors are ‘daisy-chained’ when wired… meaning that each detector is connected to a single cable. With low voltage detectors, each device is wired directly to the panel (or sends a wireless signal to the panel) without any ‘sharing’.

Daisy chain wiring creates a lot of frustration and wasted time for clients, the Fire Department and our Technicians when we are trying to troubleshoot why an alarm occurred … because all we know is that there was an alarm, but not the specific location from where it originated.

By contrast, with monitored low voltage detectors, we know immediately that an alarm is coming from the master bedroom smoke detector, or the basement electrical room or the garage, or wherever… giving the Fire Department much better information while they are en-route to your home.

False Alarm Issues

Because one of the most common reasons for smoke detectors tripping is burning something in the kitchen, clients invariably end up disconnecting the 120 volt smoke detector closest to the kitchen.

For this reason, we recommend that those ‘regular’ smoke detectors NOT be connected to the alarm. Instead, we install low voltage smoke detectors, designed to be remotely monitored, outside of each bedroom and in the basement… never anywhere near the kitchen.

Another advantage of low-voltage smoke detectors over the 120 volt ones is aesthetics. In many new residential projects, we are installing a flush-mount detector. The photo below shows one installed in our Kerrisdale showroom. While it is several times as expensive as a regular detector, it is the only flush mounted design that I have seen that really works.

The photo isn’t great, but it shows the smoke detector in the top right corner along with a small pot light and a ceiling mounted motion detector. Please feel free to stop by our showroom at 2309 West 41st Avenue if you would like to see how it looks installed.

What should you do?

1. Determine if your existing smoke detectors are monitored or not (call your alarm company and ask);

2. If your smoke detectors are more than 3 years old, consider having them replaced… if they are more than 5 years old, definitely have them replaced;

3. If you only have 120 Volt smoke detectors installed, consider having monitored low voltage smoke detectors added to your system (they can be either hardwired or wireless).

Our next home security seminar will start at 7:00pm this coming Monday, October 27th in our Kerrisdale Showroom.

Similar to last month’s version, both myself and Cst. Ray Gardner will lead a discussion outlining exactly how burglaries occur on the Westside, and most importantly… what you can do about it.

Our last seminar was a great success… so much so that we ended up having an overflow crowd.

As a result, we now know that the maximum number of people that we can comfortably hold in the showroom is 16… so please let us know by sending us an email at seminar@providentsecurity.bc.ca to confirm that you would like to attend.

We will have wine & cheese starting around 6:30pm… so please feel free to come by early. We will be starting the presentation right at 7:00pm and it will be over by 8:45pm.

After the presentation, we will lead a tour through our central monitoring station for those that are interested to see what happens behind the scenes.

What have others said about the information presented at the seminar?

Here is some of the survey feedback we received after the September seminar…

“I particularly liked reiteration of the information about how to delay a burglar for 5 minutes. The tour of the operations facility was very interesting and confidence building”.

“I felt at ease. Information was useful.”

“I found it interesting and informative and I’m sure others would as well …. whether they have a system or not. It helps to stay current with crime trends and security options.”

“with all the home security advertising, I think it can be somewhat confusing for people and your session helped to clear up some issues”

Friday’s fire at a UBC condo serves as yet another example of why remote management for access control systems is so important.

For those who didn’t catch the story… A fire started (sounds like from a BBQ) on a 3rd floor patio at the building… neighbours called the Fire Department reporting seeing smoke billowing (no smoke detectors in the suite??) … when the Fire Department arrived, they could not get into the building because the building had an access control system that required a keyfob to both unlock the front door as well as control the elevator.

As CTV reported, precious minutes were wasted when Fire Fighters arrived on scene because they were unable to gain entry to the building because of its access control system. (Click here to view CTV’s photo gallery of the fire)

Sadly, like most buildings in Vancouver that have access control systems (where you use a card or key-fob to unlock your door), the systems are designed with more marketing in mind than actual ‘security’. A security system should not put you at greater risk in the event that Police, Fire or Paramedics are urgently needed.

Here is the text from an article I wrote last year for Canadian Property Management Magazine that outlines the solution to this completely avoidable problem…

In February 2006 the Vancouver Police received a call from a distraught woman who said she was being beaten by her husband and needed help. When Police arrived at the downtown highrise where the call originated, they found the front doors locked and had to use the building’s intercom to dial the suite. The phone was answered by a male who simply said “She’s fine” and hung up.

When the Police tried to get into the building by dialing other residents on the intercom, they learned that although any resident could buzz them into the front lobby, the security system was designed so that only a resident on the 18th floor could allow the elevator to open on the that floor. For security reasons, none of the suite numbers were displayed on the intercom. As a result, the Police were forced to choose between randomly selecting between hundreds of residents to find one who actually lived on the same floor as where the 911 call originated, or break into the stairwell and climb 18 stories.

As pointed out in the Vancouver Province column that discussed the incident, this is not an uncommon occurrence for the Police. In fact, it has become a big enough issue that the VPD created a program called ‘Project Access’.

‘Project Access’ calls for construction companies and strata councils to install a lockbox, which would be accessible by the VPD Sergeant on duty. Inside the tube would be a full access key fob or card.

The fact that the Police cannot quickly access a building in an emergency is clearly a huge problem… and is only going to get worse. However, I strongly recommend AGAINST any building using any type of lockbox. The Fire Department has used lockboxes for years, and theft from these boxes has always been a major concern. Irrespective of construction, and even if the box itself is monitored as a part of the alarm system, an external lockbox presents an unnecessary risk to condo owners.

If the lockbox gets broken into, a thief can gain full access to the building.

The best solution is remote management.

Remote management of building access control systems solve two very serious risks: 1) as described above, the difficulty for emergency responders to gain access to the building, and 2) it eliminates the risks associated with having an access control system managed through a PC located on-site and operated by a resident manager.

The way this service works is that rather than an access control system’s database being held on a PC located at the client site (which in itself is a huge security risk) the database is moved to a secured server located in a high-security, central monitoring station.

Using either dial-up or broadband connections, security firms (that have the proper infrastructure) are able to remotely manage the database, including adding, modifying or deleting users as well as make regular database back-ups.

With a fully managed system, off-site security can talk to the Police, verify their identity, view them live on camera as well as remotely unlock the front door and control the elevator for them.

Another common failure of most building access control systems is the lack of professional management of the system. In most cases, the database that controls the system is ‘managed’ by a resident manager, concierge or other person for whom database management is not a full-time job. The result is often that new users get added into the system, but regular audits are not performed and many keyfobs and cards for former residents/tenants are left in the system. Further, because the system is being maintained on a single PC, the access control software is at significant risk of data loss due to hard drive failure, improper back-up procedures as well as the risk of the physical theft of the PC itself.

The fewer key fobs/cards in circulation, the better. Even more important, each and every keyfob must be assigned to a single person to maximize accountability. Remote access control system management maximizes the effectiveness of any building’s system and ensures that the fewest possible ‘holes’ in security exist.

Rather than waiting until a serious incident occurs in your building, answer the following questions:

1. Where is the database for your access control system physically located? Is it secure? Is it backed-up? How often?
2. Is entry to the parking garage tracked in the same way that entry through a door is? (ie. Do you know exactly who opened the garage door and when? Or does everyone have a generic ‘clicker’ that is not individually assigned?)
3. Does your building still use lockboxes for the Fire Department, or anyone else?
4. Is the building’s telephone room secured with its own separate alarm system?
5. When was the last time you had a security professional (that knew what they were talking about) provide a thorough audit of your building?

The next home security seminar will be held on Tuesday, June 24th at 7:00pm.

The seminar covers, with lots of pictures (and videos), exactly how burglaries occur on Vancouver’s Westside. More importantly, we will show you exactly what you can do (both high and low tech) to ensure that you minimize your risk of becoming a victim.

The seminar will be held in our new Kerrisdale showroom (click here to see what it looks like) where we have almost every conceivable home security device installed and ready to demonstrate that you can have high security without ruining the look of your home…

If you are interested in attending, please let us know via email at seminar@providentsecurity.bc.ca

We will also be offering brief tours of our state of the art Operations Centre… we will show you where all Provident alarm signals are received and automatically dispatched, how we can guarantee our five minute response time as well as show you how our unique BLINK monitoring service works.

Come by for a glass of wine between 6:45pm and 7:00pm… the seminar itself will start at 7:15pm and last about an hour…

Our showroom is located at 2309 West 41st Avenue…. which is at 41st and Vine Street.

The clip below is from a seminar that Cst. Ray Gardner of the VPD and I did at the Arbutus Club back in April… in the clip, I’m talking about protecting your protection and why you need to have muliple levels of redundancy in order to maximize security. Specifically, we talk about the reliance of most alarms on telephone lines and what you can do to eliminate that risk.