The National Crime Prevention Council and the Honeywell First Alert Professional Network is offering free tools to help protect your children against the increasing threat of on-line predators. Certified Security is happy to be able to offer you a state of the art program free of charge that will enable you to supervise and control all aspects of your child’s internet experience. Just go to www.GoMcGruff.com/FAPFree .

The Honeywell First Alert Professional Network has always been different from other networks of Security Alarm Dealers. It's primary goal has never been simply to make its dealers more profitable or more successful. From its beginning the First Alert Professional Network has made its mission to promote Life Safety.

For this reason, the people who come into your home aren't called Sales Consultants. Each and every one of them is a Life Safety Consultant. Their primary goal is to teach you how to better protect your family against burglary, home invasion and other threats such as fire and carbon monoxide.

Today the Honeywell First Alert Network is even reaching into the community to educate parents and children about cyber bullying and Internet predators. In the coming weeks Certified Security & Surveillance will be offering free software on the Certified Website that will help parents keep their children safe while they're on the computer. We will also be posting free Life Safety Literature in PDF format that will educate on a wide variety of topics important to you.

home invasion.pdf (655.54 kb)

fire safety.pdf (301.38 kb)

Look for a brand that you recognize. This system may save your home or family from a fire, medical emergency, burglary or home invasion. There is varying quality in electronic security systems in the market today. Choose one with a good reputation for dependability.

Will they install a proprietary system? A few companies still install equipment that only they can monitor. We believe that it is better to empower the consumer with the ability to freely choose who will monitor and service their security system. Certified uses Honeywell equipment that can be monitored by anyone. 

Does the company “lock out” their equipment? Ask if the equipment that you will be paying for will have anything that will hinder another company from monitoring it. There are lock out codes that companies use that prevent anyone else from monitoring you. It’s like buying a car and agreeing that it’s ok for the dealership to hold the key to the hood. One company in the industry actually puts in their contract that if you cancel their service after the initial term you have to return the “programmed software” within 96 hours of discontinuation. If you don’t return it, the contract says that you agree to pay $500. I still haven’t figured out what “software” they’re talking about.  

How does the security company rate in customer service? After finding a dependable manufacture of equipment you then have to find a company that will install it properly, support it and monitor it. One of the best ways to predict how a company will treat you is to check how they’ve treated their customers in the past.

How many complaints have been registered with the Better Business Bureau? Before allowing a company to visit you in your home, go to http://BBB.Org to check them out online. Depending on the bureau, companies will be give either a grade such as A – F or simply satisfactory or not satisfactory. Looking to see the actual number of complaints that people have taken the time and effort to register will give you insight into the satisfaction level of a company’s customer base.  

“Google” any companies you are considering to find out what others are saying about them online. The internet has become a huge consumer organization where people are able to go and give reviews, testimonials or complaints as they see fit. You do have to read them with a critical mind but if you see a pattern of praise or complaints it is probably warranted.

Next you should find out about the actual people who will be coming to your home. Does the company you’re considering use subcontractors or are the people you will be dealing with employed directly by the company. Are they bonded and insured? Will they be wearing a uniform? Will they have company identification?  

Are you dealing with a company that has a drug free workplace? I know that having a drug free workplace makes finding people to work for you more difficult. But we wouldn’t want it any other way. You should demand the assurance that the company you are dealing with is doing everything in their power to protect you and your family from people with addictions coming into your home. 

Does the company in question do background checks on all their potential employees? I just can’t stress enough how important it is to make sure that the people who are coming into your home are people you can trust.

Is the Monitoring Station UL listed? Today most central monitoring stations are UL listed. That is good news. The Underwriters Laboratory is the organization that checks and lists (like certification) central monitoring stations. However there are still a handful of local stations that are not listed or certified by any organization. I would not put the safety of my family in the hands of any company that wasn’t willing to be scrutinized and examined by an outside authority.

Are there multiple backup monitoring stations? In most critical services there is built in redundancy. It’s better to have backups that aren’t used than to need them and have none. There’s no difference with monitoring. If a company depends on a single isolated monitoring station then bad weather, natural disaster or unexpected crisis that effect your community may also affect the employees of the isolated “local” monitoring station. If employees can’t make it to work, who is left watching the systems that keep you safe? 

• Burglary is defined as an unlawful entry of a structure to commit a felony or theft. A person can be arrested for coming inside even if nothing is stolen.
• A burglary is commited every 14-15 seconds in the United States
• The average loss from a burglary is about $1,600
• In about 30 percent of burglaries the criminal gets in without using force. Often they come through an unlocked door or window.
• Most burglaries occure in the daytime between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. when no one is home.
• Only 13 percent of reported burglaries are solved by police.
• Even worse, only 15 percent of stolen property in burglaries is ever recovered by police.
• Almost half of the nations reported burglaries occur in the South (45%).
• 70 percent of of all burglary arrestees are white.
• Homes without security systems are two to three times more likely to broken into than ones that do.

          These facts are based on FBI statistics found in, Crime in the United States 2003. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/cius_03/pdf/toc03.pdf

I’ve often been asked why we are so insistent on installing motion detectors on every new system we install. If all the windows and doors are protected with sensors, then why do we include a motion detector in the design of the security system?

The quick answer is, even with all your openings secured with sensors, if someone gets into your home or business without opening a window or door the system will not sound. For instance, a secured window has to be opened for the alarm to sound and a signal to be sent to the Central Monitoring Station. If someone were to break the window and crawl through the broken glass, they could get in without the system knowing.

We install a motion detector to protect against a scenario like the one above. No matter how a person gets into a home or business, if they walk through an area protected by a motion detector, the security system will sense them. When it does, the alarm will sound and the Central Monitoring Station will be notified.

A motion detector works like an invisible trap. When I was a child, every winter the mice would try to come into the garage and storage shed of our home. My father would set mice traps to catch them. He taught me to put the traps along the baseboards because that was where the mice would run. They avoided running across the floor in the open.

In the same way, we put the motion detector in the path that a burglar would logically walk through. That is usually in front of the master bedroom, down a hall or near large glass openings. In that way we have a good chance of catching the rat…or criminal.