Our building recently installed cameras. We bought the system ourselves from amazon (4 camera system with DVR) and called Dan Harris from Harris electric (right here in Jersey City) to install it. When all was said and done, we got 4 cameras for about $2000 installed. Great deal but it takes some work meeting with Dan to figure out how to best run the wires/store the monitor and DVR, etc...

For the doors and windows in our individual unit, we used a simple, yet effective solution. They make some serious noise though they aren't connected to any central station.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001 ... ef=oh_o02_s00_i00_details

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http://www.spystorenyc.com/ in the Village
Spy Store
224 West 4th St. 2nd Floor
NY. NY 10014
(corner of Christopher St & 7th ave.
Entrance next to Bank of America)
Phone: 212.366.6466
spystore244@yahoo.com

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Check out surveillance-video.com. Or just to go into their shop at 387 Canal Street, just outside of the Holland Tunnel. They can put together a nice system. You want Infrared cameras for day and night use. Simple recorders go to HD, but you can also get systems that connect online.

Installation advice? After installing a system and recording some shoplifters I didn't have a good shot of their face because I placed the cameras around 8' off the floor, just like you see on all surveillance footage. I recommend putting one camera low, at most chest level through a window or some other protected area so you get a good face shot.

good luck

Can anyone recommend an outdoor home video security system which is wireless and requires simple installation? Price is not a factor. Thanks!

Looking for a system which will allow me to detect motion, see in the dark, and is weatherproof.

Be careful with the contract you sign, read all the small print, and renegotiate clauses that are unacceptable.

All of these companies will lure you in with free installation and then lock you into long-term contracts (3 or even 5 years), with provisions in the contarcts that they auto-renew for a further 3 year period if you don't cancel them in writing at exactly the correct time (not too early, not too late).

I refused to sign my contact with such an auto-renew clause, so they agreed to take it out.

Robin.

Be cautious of ADT Pulse. Had it installed and then all service disappeared. Continued to be looped through phone system when part of the new system didn't work properly. I logged over 90 minutes of on-holds, transferring, leaving messages just to get to a human voice that new what they were talking about. Six weeks later and we're still dealing with the issue. The initial sales guy was all promises but all but disappeared during the problems, e-mailing but never returning a call when it came to a crisis.

They are growing too large to handle the service, the technicians are still learning this new system and the sales person drops you once they make their commission. By the time they got around to paying attention to us and the issue we had been through so many people, phone systems, voice mails & emails and had to seriously make a stink about it not working right, it wasn't worth the cost of the system.

It sounds like a great system until you need someone to help you with it. What will happen when someone breaks in? We're debating taking the whole thing out and starting again.

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Welcome. I had Brinks which is now Broadview and was very happy with this hardwired system. Never malfunctioned and never had a nuisance alarm.

Interesting article from a consumer review website: http://www.topconsumerreviews.com/home-security/

Protect America was rated highest.

ADT pulse

Hi!

I am new to the Jersey City Heights area, and just bought a multi-family house.

I was wondering if anyone had recommendations or thoughts on Security Systems for their home. I see various signs about ADT, etc around the neighborhood.

Any advise, thoughts, recommendation, non-recommendation, or price would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you!

So based on some recommendations from this site, I dropped ADT and switched to another alarm monitoring company (Alarm Relay). I managed to reuse most of the components of the original system, however I was told that I needed to hire an alarm technician to wire in any newer parts to the system. Can anyone recommend an alarm technician or computer geek who knows how to do this?

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I know with my alarm, there are different zones (front door, basement door, basement motion, windows, etc..) If the alarm goes off and I get a call, they can tell me which zone and I know to respond accordingly. In your situation, it seems only the front door can be alarmed. If each apartment door is a zone, how will others know who's home. You could be leaving and open your apartment door just to set off the alarm. The question still is 'how to deal with 3 different tenants and who gets called'. A phone line in a central area (hallway/stairway) that can be accessed by all tenants might work. A basic verizon line costs under $25 and maybe that's paid for by the landlord but divided up and added to each rent.

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If you are willing to pay the expense, you can get a extra phone line for the alarm call back. You would put a phone in each apartment to be used for this callback and everyone would get the call. You would want to notify everyone if there is a break in anyway. I assume you all know each other well.

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Try "Guardian", very reliable, state of the art system and monitoring and Heads & shoulders above the others.

Good Luck

There are just three apartments in our building (four tenants) and we were looking into getting one alarm system at the front door.

Our landlord actually agreed to splitting the cost with us tenants... but ran into a snag.

she wrote -
The only problem which I haven?t been able to resolve is how to know who to call if the alarm goes off. If one of you accidently sets it off, the alarm company will only call one number. If they call tenant 1, she won?t know if it?s a true alarm if it?s been set off by the tenant 2 or tenant3/tenant4. Unfortunately, the police department will come and write a summons if it?s a false alarm. I believe they allow you two without issuing the summons, but after that it?s a problem. If any of you have any suggestions on how we can alleviate this problem, please let me know.



Is there a security system that works for multi-family homes? I haven't called companies yet. Should we all just get our own systems? Maybe they'll cut us a break since it's three in the same building.

This is all very helpful. Thank you everyone.

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Not a long post at all, just thorough. Thanks for the info.

Sorry for the long post but there's a ton of info here....

We have Slomins Shield.

Negatives:

- We were locked into a five year contract (in order to qualify for free installation)

- If you want to move your contract in under 5 years, you are still responsible for the remaining months plus there is a steep charge for moving your contract (I think it's the cost of installation) plus your contract resets to the original five years in your new place. Your other option would be to sell the system to the new occupants of the dwelling for the remainder of the contract.

- Installation fees run about $600 (without the 5 yr contract)

- System is hardwired ONLY with some wireless components. If you don't have an unfinished basement or crawl space, wires may be exposed and fastened with staples to your walls.

- What they claim their installed hardware is valued at: $1,200 ~ Actual value of hardware ~ $150 maybe $200

- I found I had to basically re-write their keypad instruction booklet for our tenants. It's very unclear about alot of functions

- Absolutely no online support

- After about three years, we had to get the alarm and battery packs replaced (but this was covered under Slomin's maintenance fees)

- You need a land-line to operate it. Not an issue with my space but often tenants can't use the system because they sometimes opt not to activate their house phones.

- There has been complaints lodged against SS regarding claims made by sales agents at the time of signing for 'guarantees' that were not stated in the contract. When customers try to refer to these claims, the company will always use the contract to dispute. So basically when a salesman tells you to take his word for something DON'T! Although this pretty much goes for any negotiation/contract review situation be it a time share, health club membership, insurance policy, etc.

- The basic panel is limited to 8 zones.

- The extended warranty has an annual cost of $134.00.

- The smoke detector they install is NOT approved by the NFPA, nor is it recognized as a qualified smoke detector in many jurisdictions. Paragraph 3 of their contract states this. Their smoke detector does not qualify for any additional insurance discounts on many homeowner's policy.

- The motion detectors are single technology motion detectors which are easily triggered by insects, cobwebs, or small pets. Single technology motion detectors are a primary cause for false alarms which results in fines being levied against the homeowner.

- Their contract clearly states they will place a lien on your property for the duration of the contract and should you default on the contract your ?free" system will now have a cost of $1169.00 of which you will be responsible for paying 60% of that PLUS pay the balance of the monitoring contract.

- Their system has a 15 second delay in the dialer.

- Their system cannot be monitored by any other company so if you decided to switch companies after the 5 years you would need a new system installed.

- Truly a hassle to cancel. We've had experiences trying to cancel certain accounts. It involved calling customer service, being transferred to their cancellation department, having to leave them your number. Waiting days for them to call you back, finally speaking with someone to request the cancellation, needing to wait for a cancellation letter, having to fill out and send back the letter, waiting for them to receive it, all the while continuing to be billed. A call to their cancellation dept always ends in assurances that nothing is owed and the problem is taken care of. The next month, another bill will arrive and then the next, this time with a late notice. Finally worked out after several months.


Positives:

- Free system with 5 yr contract. You get: 1 panel, 2 keypads, 3 doors, 2 motions, 1 fire sensor, and a keychain remote

- Our installation was clean and no wires were left exposed. Only one window sensor ever gave us a problem.

- Good phone customer service. They walked up through the operation of the keypads and fobs.

- SS customer service and alarm monitoring stations are located in New York and they don't out source these departments. Apparently some alarm providers will use call centers located in other countries.

- They offer 3 free months when you recommend a friend who signs. So when we signed three apartments at once, we paid nothing on one system for half a year. (Neg: If I ever decided to refer a friend, I would advise him of EVERY negative and would probably still feel some qualms about it)

Also note: We have never registered our system with Jersey City police or fire department. Early on we had about 2-3 false alarms triggered by ourselves or our tenants (mostly due to inexperience with the system). Response times were very quick. We were never issued a 'false alarm fine' for these by any department in Jersey City.



With all this, we have been very satisfied with the service provided by Slomins. We will continue to be their customers. Mostly because their equipment is installed and we've already fulfilled our original contract and can cancel or restart on any of our apartments at any time. Also because the system has probably prevented a building fire involving a sleeping tenant and a late night hotdog. It gives us peace of mind when we go away on vacations or even out to dinner. And because they've been in business since 1923, we're pretty confident they'll be around for many more years.

ADT spoke at one of the Downtown JC Watch meetings. However, the captain mentioned that if you purchase a noise alarm that attaches to a window, the noise itself will alert neighbors. They will call the police as well as scare away the intruder. This is best if cost is a concern.

If you are tech savvy and can do your own installation, homesecuritystore.com is worth checking out.

They have a forum that can answer some questions you might have.

Good luck!

I've been looking into NextAlarm.com to replace my current setup. Does anybody here use it?

The complaints I've seen about ADT are mainly that you're locked into a 3 year contract, the installation and monitoring costs are high, and that the installers often often do a sloppy job. Also their control hardware is 'locked' to ADT (kind of like a cell phone is locked to the carrier you bought it through) so that when your contract is up, you can't just change monitoring services, you have to replace the controller.

What kind of bad reviews for ADT? Curious.

Can anyone recommend an alarm company. I've been reading a lot of very bad reviews on ADT. Does anyone use Brinks or Slomins?

If you have USAA for insurance (either you need to be in the military or be the child of a member -- mine goes back to my grandfather serving in the Korean War) then you can get a significant discount on ADT, both for the install (mine was something like $700 instead of $1000+) and the monthly fee, which is under $20. No complaints other than the salesperson they sent to deal with me was a total idiot who knew less about alarm systems than I did.

Our system was already installed when we purchased our home, so no installation costs, but we use Guardian for our monitoring. We pay approx $29/month with all taxes/fees included. And unfortunately we have had to use ours. Luckily the alarm scared off the would-be burgler before he could penetrate the dead bolt, but we were incredibly impressed with Guardian's service. The police were at our home in under 5 minutes and we were notified immeidately.
And now that we are moving and can't take our contract with us to our new locations, they are allowing us to transfer the remainder of the contract to the new owners with no charges.

We use Slomins. Service is ok. Definitley get the service contract as they have had to come out and fix things a few times especially with the conflicts between verizon and their system. Our salesman, promised us many things he couldnt deliver on and then disappeared. we have a victorian bay window which he said would count as one window on the install and that he could get the window glass break sensors included. needless to say, when we found we couldnt get him, we already signed the contract and we didnt know until it was all installed and they just said "too bad, you signed the contract!" point being if the sales rep promises you something and that they can get you something make sure it is written on the contract. not even a seperate sheet would count. Good luck.

Copy, paste and laminate. Then stick them up near all entrance doors and windows.

Cheap and might work.

ADT, Brinks, etc. are easy because they install the alarm for you. If you don?t mind doing an installation yourself or finding a handyman to do the installation you could save a lot of money on monthly fees. I found this (http://monitoring.homesecuritystore.com/) when I was looking up security systems for my home. $9 per month is the best price I have seen.

ADT looks like it's the most expensive to install...way more $ then the others. Why is installation soo exspensive?

we have brinks too. we signed up for two years and got 29.95 a month. make sure you put the sign out front whichever one you get. the sign and sound are what are useful. by the time the service calls all your contacts and then the police, and then wait for the police to get there, whoever broke in will be gone.