What Would Be Your Next Step?

And that's the way it should be & is out this way--neighbors looking after neighbors

Thank You All for the insight. This is all new to me and steps are required for certain. Mike

Light up the house with motion detector lights.. no thief likes to be highlighted in a spotlight.. darkness is their friend. Make sure you
light up all ground level windows and doors.. trim bushes that provide cover for intruders to hide behind while they 'jimmy' your window.

Get a dog. I know that's a long term commitment for what his hopefully a short term problem.

Buy or borrow a game camera, that's a motion detecting or infra red heat detecting camera that stores the pics on a chip. there are ones
that are able to take virtually no-light photos.. and are silent and have no lights on the camera, so there is no indication that they are there
or active.
Borrow one from a hunter-friend for the summer, give it back in the fall.

Greg L

You can browse these 2 places they have a base unit that will call a phone with a prerecorded message and sensor lights that will do multiple functions like turn on your bedroom light,set off alarm and activate several different modules.

http://www.smarthomeusa.com/

http://www.smarthome.com/_/index.aspx

Keep it simple you don't need the high tech gadgets. Go with the X10 because Radio use to sell them but I'm not sure they still do but it won't hurt U to check the out.

http://www.smarthome.com/_/X10_Compatible/_/23X/land.aspx

This is the base I had and it worked quite well

http://www.smarthome.com/82138/X10-PA5800-Wireles ... ler/p.aspx

Nightvision camera hooked to a DVR...
http://www.amazon.com/Infrared-YY_F25A530-Waterpr ... B0014NMB72
Hand picture to cops...
Better to keep the shotgun as a suprise...
Motion sensor lights to light the crap out of the yard...

I've got motion lights & dogs, but I have been thinking of some security stuff for when we are away. Seems to me the first thing I'd want is that all of it be on a battery system. Aren't thieves smart enough to first yank the electric meter?

When I lived in Colorado my car was broken into several times. One time $400 worth of stereo equipment was stolen. When the county sheriff and state police refused to help I was forced much like you to take matters into my own hands. Step one for me was a scathing letter to the county which nearly landed myself in jail because I threatened them. Second step was a larger hard drive on my computer 16' of USB cable and a camera. I also downloaded a program that I could setup to turn the camera on at the very instance of motion. The camera was also able to follow "targets". It didn't require light and could adjust accordingly. It recorded in both black and white, color and infrared.

I spend maybe $160 for everything and my computer was on 24/7 365 and I recorded thousands of hours of video. When I was home and when I was not. I burned everything I recorded to DVD and kept them for about a month before recording over them.

Over the course of 12 months the crime rate in the apartment complex I lived in dropped from a weekly thing to nearly non-existent. In fact, there were two instances where both the county sheriff and state police knocked on my door asking for my recordings. Both times the clown who was breaking into apartments was arrested.

I never got my stereo equipment back. But I did help to lower the crime in the complex.

The camera I used was a Logitech Quickcam Pro 4000 I don't believe they make this camera any more but I'm sure the cameras they have now are much better. Also, in regards to the computer I used it was an old P4 POS that I built back in 2000 it wasn't a very good computer in the least, but it did serve my purposes.