OT: Shop break-ins

I used to work in a place where donated canned goods were stored to be later distributed to poor people. The area was not very secure(able) against people who wanted to do a little illicit food shopping. Whoever was doing the stealing had a preference for the occasional fancy food that would be stored there. When we discovered the problem, we took a can of cat food, removed the label, and carefully glued the label from a can of crab meat on in its place. Leaving it in a conspicuous place, we would check on it once in a while to see if it was still there. Several weeks passed before it disappeared, but after that the pilfering tapered off dramatically.

||Ok, I'm in a crappy neighborhood but this is ridiculous! This last weekend ||marked the third break-in in 5 weeks. Get this: They cooked and ate 8 TV ||dinners and 4 cans of soup and any other food that was in the employee's ||refrigerator. They chopped a hole through a wall to avoid the motion ||detectors scattered through the shop. They stole all the cats' food!!! ||They took a dump on the floor in the machine shop. The must have run some ||of the machines because ther were piles of sawdust aroung a shaper and drill ||station.

1 - Trade the cat for a rottweiler 2 - Fire ADT, install a self-monitored alarm that fires a big-ass siren & strobe on the roof and another inside and out of reach. The control unit should also dial your house. 3 - If it's a steel building, finish the inside walls with plywood or something tougher. Perhaps add bars or thick expanded metal welded between the supports, behind the plywood.

How often do you go there? Texas Parts Guy

Sounds like you need a guardpanther.

Increased system capabilities, right. Looks like another security service could hardly do worse. You had a lot of activity go undetected. I don't think you need Delta Force to deal with intruders that crap on the floor and steal catfood. It might help to detect their presence, though.

Trust me if you encountered an intruder and you were armed, the situation would require many avenues of thought. First, you must decide if the intruder is armed and willing to use deadly force against you. Then you have to have the nerve to point and shoot your weapon into the intruder. You will never even hear the gun go off. All of this would take place in less then a second. So if right now your main concern is your ears, then take your gun to the nearest gun shop and give it to them.

I just know how loud it is and won't shoot without protection.

Hmmm. I was about to get ADT with just the exterior sensors. I know someone could cut a hole through the wall or the roof, but I never thought someone would bother.

If you're worrying about your ears in a situation where you very likely will have to shoot & kill or be shot yourself, then I think you should get some training before you start packing heat.

Gregm

If you had been wearing ear protection you probably wouldn't have been able to hear any burglars.

tHAT

Not bad suggestions. If by simply cutting a hole in the wall bypassed the internal motion detectors..ADT screwed the pooch (which is not surprising).

If you want to catch them..keep it silent and get armed response.

if you want to chase them off, NOISE!

Id strongly suggest some better internal motion detectors..such as combination units..Microwave/Passive Infrared, mounted to cover areas of travel. They are not that expensive..ADTs markup may be however..shrug...

Snail mail me a floor plan or some pictures of the inside of your shop and Ill do you a proper alarm system diagram. I ran an alarm co. for a bit over 15 yrs. Im quite good at it.

Gunner

Or some counseling.

Not to say this applies to the OP.

Frankly, there is nothing better than physical security. Do (pretty much) what Texas Parts Guy suggested, and get some web cams setup that you can view from your home. When the auto dialer goes off, look at the web cams, and if somebody is there, call the cops. Otherwise, shut down the false alarm & go back to sleep.

On Mon, 13 Sep 2004 15:11:01 GMT, rex@@txol.net (Rex B) calmly ranted:

Tiger or leopard. (Less mess as they eat the perps.)

OK, so he didn't buy the bigger kitty story. Um, how about installing a sonic cannon to disable them until he arrives?

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Hey Tom,

Didja look under the nearest bridge? Sound like homeless to me.

Tasker care.

Brian Laws>Ok, I'm in a crappy neighborhood but this is ridiculous! This last weekend

Not bad suggestions. If by simply cutting a hole in the wall bypassed the internal motion detectors..ADT screwed the pooch (which is not surprising).

If you want to catch them..keep it silent and get armed response.

if you want to chase them off, NOISE!

Id strongly suggest some better internal motion detectors..such as combination units..Microwave/Passive Infrared, mounted to cover areas of travel. They are not that expensive..ADTs markup may be however..shrug...

Snail mail me a floor plan or some pictures of the inside of your shop and Ill do you a proper alarm system diagram. I ran an alarm co. for a bit over 15 yrs. Im quite good at it.

Gunner

Think big whistle coupled to shop air supply. Think something on the order of about 1000 Hz and 130 Db. Two would be even better, just get the two pitches off by about 30 Hz. You won't want to stay in the room with these long at all.

Of course, you will still have to clean up the crap on the shop floor, but you may smile a bit while doing it this time.

-- Joe

-- Joseph M. Krzeszewski Mechanical Engineering and stuff snipped-for-privacy@wpi.edu Jack of All Trades, Master of None... Yet

sounds like you need a bigger cat :)

Do the doors, make sure the windows are locked, and place some interior sensors in the areas of travel. Be sure your alarm panel has multiple zones (they report which zone(s) is being triggered to the Central Office. If you have more than one trigger..you have visitors.

Gunner

"At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child - miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosphy of sniveling brats." -- P.J. O'Rourke

Why do you have a cat? Why aren't you carrying a gun all the time? It sounds like homeless people. Get a hammer in your hand and run them out. Too bad about the dump, he he.

Night prowlers are out at night for one primary reason.. they don't want to be seen. Lots of exterior lighting will deter them. The fixtures need to be inaccessible, so they can't black the light out with a hit or painting the light. The ones that aren't shy of light will probably only attempt a quick or easy entry, and if there isn't a quick way in, they'll probably leave.

I recently saw some video cameras that claim to be able to withstand a shotgun blast, and some equally rugged light fixtures could probably be located.

It sounds as if ADT is a crap outfit, at least the ones that did your location. I'd certainly be contacting the national manager, not the local office. I'd get a little obnoxious with some company rep if my livelyhood (as well as your employees') had been jepordized more than once. The idea of cleaning up a bodily discharge of any type isn't pleasant, but can also put you at risk of disease. I wouldn't take any shit from ADT either.

How long has ADT been in the security business? Since Jesse James, maybe? You're extremely fortunate (in several ways) that the punk bastards didn't start a fire, or get an arm cut off playing with one of your machines.

WB ..................