A few weeks ago we had our aging house alarm and smoke detectors updated. I had been in the habit of not using the alarm, so I’ve put a big sticky note on the door to remind me to turn it off before we set it off each time we reenter. Even still, the girls or I have accidentally barged in and set it off two or three times in the past few weeks. Every time it happens it reminds me of the alarm debacle of 2012 when we first moved into this house. It’s been over six years since it happened, but I remember it well.
What follows is from the archives of spring 2012, a throwback Thursday post of sorts:
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8:30 AM-2:30 PM
The Spouse was off work, and we spent the whole morning working on some projects around the house while the oldest two were at preschool and the baby napped at home.
2:59 PM
On what had been a productive, but otherwise uneventful afternoon, we were driving home after picking the girls up from preschool when my cell phone rang. A person from the call center that monitors our house alarm informed us the alarm had been set off based on tampering of our crawl door and front windows. This would be unsettling, but we’ve had several false alarms in the past and have learned not to get too worked up about these situations. Since we weren’t yet home, we allowed the call center to go ahead and dispatch a police officer to the house.
3:15 PM
We arrived home and didn’t immediately see anything suspicious. The Spouse looked all around the house and went in to make sure there were no signs of anything unusual. We reasoned that maybe the wind had rattled the crawl space door and triggered the alarm. We didn’t see or hear from the police, so we assumed they either did a drive-by and went on OR were never actually dispatched. So, once we determined that it looked safe enough, we went about our usual business… Curious George and snacks for the girls, laundry for me, etc, etc.
4:05 PM
I was getting ready to make a quick trip to Lowe’s and the grocery store. I stood at the door to discuss with the Spouse what exactly we needed from Lowe’s for a few seconds and then opened the door leading from the kitchen to the garage which is when…
A police officer jumps from the outside edge of the garage around the corner WITH HIS GUN DRAWN and announces himself as a sheriff with the _____ County Police Department. {I will note here that the gun was not pointed at me but drawn up to his chest}.
Completely caught off guard and SCARED OUT OF MY MIND BECAUSE AN ARMED OFFICER HAS JUST JUMPED OUT FROM AROUND THE CORNER OF OUR GARAGE, I immediately start explaining, “Oh my goodness, I live here! We live here! We didn’t think you were coming. That was over an hour ago. It was a false alarm. I promise we live here!”
At this point the officer, who himself is sweating and visibly a little shaken, too, starts kindly asking for proof that we do indeed live here. Of course, my purse is in the car which is parked at the road. The Spouse’s wallet is in the car which is parked at the road. So, the officer says we cannot leave the house but we can show him a bill or a piece of paper that has our name and address on it. Apparently the three young children watching TV and playing in the background wasn’t any evidence of our residence here. So, this is when I felt the need to tell him that if we were going to break into a house, we sure wouldn’t bring our children along with us. I mean, seriously. If I was in the business of raiding houses I sure wouldn’t do it with two preschoolers and a baby in tow! For whatever reason he didn’t find that amusing.
And still, I needed to find a bill. Ironically, the first two bills I found had our old address on them. {This is when my mom says I should have gone and grabbed a family picture off the wall}. But, soon enough, I found a bill with our name and the right address printed on it for him to check.
Once he confirmed us as the homeowners and not intruders we all relaxed a little. And, he explained that it was standard procedure when an officer arrives on the scene where an alarm has been set off and finds the garage door open, to stand with his/her gun drawn until backup can arrive.
That would have been good to know.
He further explained that he could hear a female voice inside the house and wasn’t sure what might be coming at him when the door opened.
{I can tell you what was coming at him. It was a five-foot-three-inch tall mom with three children under age 5 just on a mission to get to Lowe’s and Kroger and back in an hour. This makes me wonder… is my voice that intimidating? I wasn’t even yelling at anyone. Secondly, where were our neighbors? Hopefully not at home watching this suspicious scene unfold. And, thirdly, is the minivan with three carseats sitting there in the driveway not good for anything? Maybe the assumption is that we could have been taken hostage, in which case I would have welcomed his armed entry.}
I didn’t have the wherewithal to ask what happens when the backup officer does arrive. Do they storm in? Because that would be traumatic.
I thought about all of this for several hours after that fact, and all I can say is… that was scary. And, I sure am glad it was a false alarm since it took an hour for the officer to arrive.
What in the world?
The moral of this story is that if you do have a false alarm, you must promptly call and cancel the dispatch even if it appears that the dispatch never happened. And, if you choose not to do so, you must close your garage door upon re-entering your home. I stress that last part: CLOSE the garage door.
And, that concludes this public service announcement.
** To this day I make sure we’ve canceled the dispatch if we set the alarm off. Ain’t nobody got time to be held up on their way to Lowe’s.
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