Over the past few weeks, we have noticed a marked increase in the number of Kerrisdale, Point Grey and Dunbar homes where thieves are cutting the phone lines before breaking in. Unfortunately, unless you have a secondary means of alarm communication such as cellular back-up, the vast majority of home alarm systems are rendered useless by simply cutting the phone lines. Once cut, the alarm system cannot communicate and thieves will have the run of your house.
Suggestions?
Walk around your house and locate where your telephone lines are attached. Do they all come into one grey plastic box without any protection? Worse yet, are they just stapled along the side of your home or building? If yes, consider physically protecting the lines by having a secure enclosure built around them. Rocky Krogfoss has a good product that many of our clients have been happy with. In terms of monitoring for line failure, consider having us install a secondary means of communication… either a cellular back-up or internet back-up module to your alarm.
The advantages of having a cellular back-up system is that if the phone lines are cut, a wireless signal will be sent to us and we will respond. Often times, thieves think that they have defeated the system and work a little slower… giving us an extra opportunity to respond and get the Police involved as quickly as possible.
Here is a link to an old Courier article that talks about this very underreported issue.