“Don’t Fear the Reaper” opening guitar riff, woke me up at 12:12am today. That is the unique ringtone I have created for the alarm company that monitors our church. I want to hear it when the alarm company calls, and I want it to be jarring, which it is. There are sensors on the the doors and motion sensors in the building and something set them off at 12:12 this morning. I set all my devices to “Do Not Disturb” but Apple allows favorites to break through and be heard. With IOS 10, I believe, Apple added “Emergency Bypass” as an option. Even if the volume is down, and sound is off and “Do Not Disturb” is on, you can set Emergency Bypass, to always break through. A few select relatives and the alarm company are set with Emergency Bypass on so they will always get through.
We got the alarm system in the the church several years ago, when a homeless man made his way into the church and took up residence on the third floor. We had to call the police when we heard a radio playing on the third floor. It turns out the homeless man used to be a very involved member many years ago, prior to me becoming pastor. He still had his old key set, so he just walked in. The locks had never been changed since their install in 1961. They were Schlage locks, which are good, but they were becoming loose after all these years, and everyone, it seemed, had a front door key. So we changed the locks and got an alarm, at the suggestion of the police that came to remove the homeless man. We installed Medeco locks and issued to keys to a select group of people. With those locks, limits key holders and an alarm, we have not had problems with homeless people taking up residence.
When I get a call from the alarm company, they always ask if I want to have them call the police. I always say “no thank you.” This is because a year after we had our alarm installed, we received a letter from the Alameda County Sheriff. They stated that we needed to buy an annual permit for our alarm system. They also informed us that unless they made an arrest when called, there would be a false alarm charge. That charge would be $300 for the first call, $600 for the second, $900 for the third and on like that. The count would reset every twelve months. So with the first false alarm I would be charged $300 and the twelve month clock would start.
When we first had the alarm system installed, the alarm company's policy was that they would automatically call the police with every alarm. After four false alarms and a final bill of $1,200 we told the alarm company that we would have to fire them if they kept calling the police. They finally changed their policy and will only call the police if we ask them.
Last nights event occurred because one of the users of the building left without locking all the doors. Our church is in a neighborhood where people will come by in the middle of the night and try the doors and try to get into any cars that are in the parking lot. Since most of the door were left unlocked, someone opened one and set off the alarm, which also includes a very loud siren inside the church. This has served to scare away all intruders, so we do not call the police because no one sticks around to get arrested and we don’t want to pay the fines.
The full version of my ringtone:
#Thoughts on Alarms#
We got the alarm system in the the church several years ago, when a homeless man made his way into the church and took up residence on the third floor. We had to call the police when we heard a radio playing on the third floor. It turns out the homeless man used to be a very involved member many years ago, prior to me becoming pastor. He still had his old key set, so he just walked in. The locks had never been changed since their install in 1961. They were Schlage locks, which are good, but they were becoming loose after all these years, and everyone, it seemed, had a front door key. So we changed the locks and got an alarm, at the suggestion of the police that came to remove the homeless man. We installed Medeco locks and issued to keys to a select group of people. With those locks, limits key holders and an alarm, we have not had problems with homeless people taking up residence.
When I get a call from the alarm company, they always ask if I want to have them call the police. I always say “no thank you.” This is because a year after we had our alarm installed, we received a letter from the Alameda County Sheriff. They stated that we needed to buy an annual permit for our alarm system. They also informed us that unless they made an arrest when called, there would be a false alarm charge. That charge would be $300 for the first call, $600 for the second, $900 for the third and on like that. The count would reset every twelve months. So with the first false alarm I would be charged $300 and the twelve month clock would start. When we first had the alarm system installed, the alarm company's policy was that they would automatically call the police with every alarm. After four false alarms and a final bill of $1,200 we told the alarm company that we would have to fire them if they kept calling the police. They finally changed their policy and will only call the police if we ask them.
Last nights event occurred because one of the users of the building left without locking all the doors. Our church is in a neighborhood where people will come by in the middle of the night and try the doors and try to get into any cars that are in the parking lot. Since most of the door were left unlocked, someone opened one and set off the alarm, which also includes a very loud siren inside the church. This has served to scare away all intruders, so we do not call the police because no one sticks around to get arrested and we don’t want to pay the fines.
The full version of my ringtone:
#Thoughts on Alarms#
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