Paranoid business owner

[bhskittykatt]

So Hubby's security firm decided to cut everyone's hours so they don't have to pay benefits, but in exchange Hubs got switched to armed patrol with a slightly higher pay grade. The logic is a bit weird if you think about it; his company basically told him "Yeah, so we're cutting your hours down to part time because we don't like our employees enough to offer benefits, btw can you start carrying a loaded gun to work?" Hey, at least they trust him.

Anyway, part of his patrol is responding to alarms. The other night, he had an alarm at a business. He arrived and there was a black SUV in the parking lot. The SUV turned around and started heading toward him. He mentally prepared to grab the plate number as he expected them to make a run for it, but the SUV stopped and rolled down its windows instead.

Turns out, it was the business owner. He only lived a couple blocks away. He had responded to the alarm and told Hubs he had already called the police because he was sure someone was in the building.

So Hubs waited outside the building since the police dispatch had told them to stay clear until the police arrived. Police came, business owner unlocked the door, they walked around, and aside from being startled by the radio that the business owner had hooked up to a motion sensor near the door, there was nothing. It was a false alarm.

As they walked out, the police asked Hubs, "If your company responds to his alarm, then why did he call us?"

Best they could tell was that the owner had a jacket hanging off his chair and a breeze had pushed it and triggered the motion alarm. Because this owner who is so paranoid about his security? He had left a window open right to his office.

I get that it's your business, but jeez. If he'd let the security service do their job, they could have avoided wasting the police time. And since Hubs had to then wait for the police after the owner called them instead of being able to do his job normally, the owner is getting billed for all that extra time from the security agency as well.

At least the security agency looks good in the client's eyes, since the owner complimented Hubs on beating the police there. Of course, that's simply Hubby's job to respond to alarms. (The reason the police were a bit delayed? They were responding to an assault case. That's their job.)

[Captain Trips]

I know in some places, the police would also bill the business owner for a false alarm. (One place I used to work regularly got billed by the fire department - for a short in one of the fire sensors, they kept getting called out. After about a dozen times, the company had ADT come out and fix their equipment.)

[Silent-Hunter]

I know in some places, the police would also bill the business owner for a false alarm.

That's a bad idea. It would discourage business owners who genuinely suspect someone has broken in from calling.

[LillFilly]

One place my company was contracted with had a door that rattled so hard in its frame whenever it was windy (99.9% of the time in that area) that it set off the alarm. My old boss had to respond every time the alarm company called with an alarm activation. It got real old.

He got called over 40-times in one night, for the same door rattling. He was not allowed to ignore the alarm, turn it off, or tell the alarm company to ignore it.

He ended-up just sleeping in his car next to the door the whole night.

[Silent-Hunter]

Wow. I would have had the alarm professionally uninstalled at that stage. Having my business robbed would be better than sacrificing my health like that.

[LillFilly]

Wow. I would have had the alarm professionally uninstalled at that stage. Having my business robbed would be better than sacrificing my health like that.

We were the hired security; he was on call - he got woken up; not the owner or managers. They made the rules. They never got that door fixed as long as we were there.

[Irving Patrick Freleigh]

That's a bad idea. It would discourage business owners who genuinely suspect someone has broken in from calling.

It's about the easiest money the cop shop can make. Especially if the alarms are monitored offsite and the call is made by whomever's doing the monitoring.

This is the case at the swamp. We've gotten a few of those fines. If it's due to one of the maintenance people opening a door while the alarms are still on, we pass the fine onto the maintenance contractor.

[Shalom]

Best they could tell was that the owner had a jacket hanging off his chair and a breeze had pushed it and triggered the motion alarm. Because this owner who is so paranoid about his security? He had left a window open right to his office.

Back when I first started at Aid of Rite, around '98 or so, I did the overnight shift in a 24-hour pharmacy. There was one other AoR in that town, and every time their alarm went off, I'd get a call from the security company. I'd tell them that I couldn't do a whole hell of a lot for them; I didn't have keys or alarm codes for that store, even if I could leave my own store, so they'd wind up sending the cops. Nothing was ever found.

It kept happening. In that town you get three freebies, then each false alarm thereafter gets you a fine. AoR, who never spent a dime if they could help it, decided to figure out why this was recurring and costing them $$. Eventually someone noticed that although it didn't go off every night, on those nights when it did, it was right around the same time each night, so they started looking for a pattern. Strangely enough, it was only on the nights after a very busy day that they'd get false alarms.

So what happens at the same time every night in a chain pharmacy? The daily paperwork prints out, the stack of papers falls off the top of the ancient Lexmark laser printer, and the motion sensor goes off . . .

Seems it was only those days when they did a lot of prescriptions that the stack got high enough to topple; on slow days, it was low enough that it stayed put. I don't know how long it was until they made that connection, or who figured it out, but they finally started leaving a box covering the printer when they closed at night, and the nuisance alarms ceased.

[KellyHabersham]

I know in some places, the police would also bill the business owner for a false alarm. (One place I used to work regularly got billed by the fire department - for a short in one of the fire sensors, they kept getting called out.

That's what happened when I worked in the church office - we were having problems with false alarms for awhile, and it got to where we were fined $90 each time it happened. (I think this was if the police had to come out)

[Sapphire Silk]

We were the hired security; he was on call - he got woken up; not the owner or managers. They made the rules. They never got that door fixed as long as we were there.

A little weather stripping would probably fix the problem.

[VComps]

I know in some places, the police would also bill the business owner for a false alarm.

Here, businesses get a few false alarms; but if you hit a certain number, you get fined, and if it hits a certain number above that, the police simply stop responding to alarm calls for your business.

[mhkohne]

That's a bad idea. It would discourage business owners who genuinely suspect someone has broken in from calling.

It has it's downsides, and in most places you get a few freebies. But with big corps being what they are, the cops have to make it atbleast a little inconvenient, or they'll never bother to fix misbehaving alarms

[TopEndDave]

Many years ago when I lived in Alice Springs there was a Jeweler who was paranoid about security. He would set the alarms on his house but leave his back door open so his dog could go in and out. I was glad we moved away from his house.

The Jeweler was setting up a new shop and got 5 motion sensors installed in a space that only required three. The security tech argued against five sensors but the "Customer is Always Right" so five got installed. The overkill didn't make the shop safer it just increased the number of false alarms. The sensors were detecting each other.

[MadMike]

When we were still in the old building at my job, back in the early 90's, they had a bunch of false alarms. Apparently what was happening was, a lot of people had miniature American flags mounted on top of their cubicles, in support of the people fighting in the Gulf War. Every time the A/C unit would kick on, the little flags would start waving, and the motion sensor would go off.

[Argabarga]

A friend of mine used to work security, and said that 90% of his calls some nights were responding to motion sensor alarms, with 90% of THOSE alarms being the result of someone deciding to work late and not TELLING the security company, furthermore, not seeing WHY they had to in the first place since they owned the place! As if the motion sensors should have known that....

At least they could be billed for the time wasted.