Thanks for the replies everyone.

I think i'll go for the 'passive' alarm route. There was a system already installed in our house when we moved in. It isn't connected to the monitoring service so yeah, it'd just go off and hopefully scare 'em away. The only contacts are on the front and back door and one obscure window in the back of the house. There's a motion sensor in the living room but we never use it because they say our cats would set it off (what good is it then???) we had service when we first moved in because the previous owner had a 2 year contract he had to honor and they wouldn't move the system for him so he prepaid it and we got to use it.

The service is now over and i suppose my question should have been worded more like this: "should i continue the monitoring service now that i'm growing?"

I think i'll just stick with the scare tactics. although i'd like to get a few more sensors / window break detectors / a motion sensor that won't be set off by a small cat.

illnillinois, any thoughts on that? i'm in NY so i don't think we'd be able to hook up. It's a hardwired system requiring a home phone for communications. We don't have a home phone anymore so there isn't communication anyways. Any thoughts on how i could get a wireless communicator and program it to call my phone? that'd be super duper. i can provide model numbers and what not.


thanks for all the insights, sorry for the confusion.

Skeet.

PS - i like the boots idea, sounds like you roll with a pretty tight bunch.