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Something went bump in the night...and I learned some very important lessons.

any sort of night vision you should get used to walking around your house with, considering any of those devices kills your peripheral (sp?) vision. like walking up an down stairs an the whatnot.


on the side note i think shock value in any sort of situation like that is good, be at the low ready then snap to sights on em, surprise em and immediately go on the offensive, if they have any sort of weapon in there hands start yelling to have em put it down and get there asses on the ground to search em, but thats just me

yea and derek adrenaline can do wonders for the human body, besides the hearing, ya can move faster usually think more clearly, and react to situations that you thought you could never do
 
Palladin said:
http://www.lutron.com/products/productSystems.aspx?sid=AuroRa&pid=WhatIsAuroRa&cid=0

Run you $300-400 or so...simple install
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I've had good luck with x.10. The hallways and outside lights are hooked in. I have a wireless remote on my nightstand, and a dog downstairs. If the dog goes off, the lights go on.

Smarthome (http://smarthome.com) has a pretty good x.10 section.

I've bought from x10.com too. Their website is annoying though. It's like a used car lot, always with the world's greatest deal ending Real Soon Now. If you get by the hype you can find what you want.
http://x10.com
 
Bump in the night

Several of you have mentioned, searching your house after hearing a noise. My advice is "Do not do this"
If you are seriously concerned the first thing to do is call 911, get you gun, and hunker down to wait for either the BG or for the police to arrive.
The only conceivable reason to do a house search is if you hear one of the kids screaming. This not a search but rather a rescue situation.

I have done building searches alone and with the police and it is not a fun thing. To have any reasonable chance of success, you need at least three people to do this and you are alone. If there is a BG in the house, your chances are somewhere between slim and none.
 
While I agree that a house clearing is impossible to do alone, I can't subscribe to the "never go look" either. Not every noise is an intruder. (and with kids, most likely not)

My latest "noise" was the truck my son takes to bed with him falling onto the floor grate for the heat return. Some sense of judgment does need to occur. Rushing to my son's room wasn't my first action. I think I stood at the bedroom door listening for a good 10 minutes. I then checked on my son and noticed his truck was not in bed.

That said, everyone's home has a rhythm which is 'normal'. You should be able to tell when that rhythm is off. I know that the chirp of a low smoke alarm battery will wake me. I stood ready at the door (Dukie was on my heels wondering what was up) and we both stood there silently listening for anything. The next chirp told me what it was and I took care of it. I was amazed that it was the chirp from the laundry room one floor down that woke me.

No intruder will know all the creaky floors, stairs etc. Even the most cautious will make some kind of noise.

The real question is "when?" When do you assume entry and enact the defensive plan? That's tough to say. Obviously you don't want to get on the local PD "crank' list. But you don't want to take chances either. Everyone will have to decide for themselves what is the 'best' time.

The two times I have gone 'looking', I never did find the source. I think I know what one was, but I can't be sure. In both those cases, I did the "listen" for 30 minutes and then sent the dog down first. When he had run around enough to have found anyone, I followed and did a check of doors and windows and verified the sensor lights. I can tell you that the rest of both nights were not very restful.
 
I think if I heard a noise that sounded like an acutal person downstairs and not just a little bump, I probably wouldnt go looking for them. I tend to "clear" my house more often to give myself piece of mind to go back to sleep when I hear a noise that is odd, but suspect to be nothing. I bring the gun just in case I am wrong....

Its probably the wrong way of thinking but I prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and assume most "bumps" are nothing but prepare for them to be something until proven otherwise.
 
Chris said:
While I agree that a house clearing is impossible to do alone, I can't subscribe to the "never go look" either. Not every noise is an intruder. (and with kids, most likely not)
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+1

You can't go calling the police for every bump in the night. If it really does sound like an intruder (breaking glass, door get kicked in, etc.), then yes, absolutely call the police.

But I've heard quite a few bumps in the night that didn't sound like an intruder that I went to investigate just in case.
 
I am not going to hunker down, no matter how many "experts" advise against it. I know my house BETTER than any burglar or SWAT team ever could. I can find my way around it in pitch black darkness.

On top of that, my bedroom layout is eminently defensible (can you say death funnel for the intruder? I knew you could). Unless the break in occurs through one of the bedroom windows, the intruder will have to walk through a funnel to get to my family. From the vantage point just outside my BR door I can dominate about 95% of the ground floor including the only way up from the basement. And if the break in occurs through a BR, then the fight is on RFN. I don't have to deal with stupid storage laws.

To top it all off, I have already figured out where to move to and in what sequence to clear everything in front of me w/o getting ambushed. I can secure my ground floor in no time flat, and if that's not where the noise came from, then it came from the basement. And I already have a plan to deal with that.

Call me paranoid, but when I am alone (girls are out) the first thing I do is run through house clearing from my BR out.

I will NOT allow a violator run through my home unchecked. There is a lot of shit I have to put up with in this world from society, but an invader in my family's sanctuary is not one of them.
 
i agree with jose, i refuse to let some a-hole go through the house, and i have no problem whatsoever about going through the house alone as previously stated i know every nook and cranny that some intruder will never notice or even realize/see. i ahve multiple entryway's pretty much into every room in the house excluding the kitchen at which point i will use the ole cover an concealment to wreck havoc down upon my enemies
 
I'm not sure, Glenn, but I think that you, Mrs WW & Cmbtengineer and Mikey & Mrs. Magnum may be the only two complete families actively posting. How cool is that?

NES - a board the whole family can enjoy! (if it's a family of gun nuts, that is...)
 
dwarven1 said:
I'm not sure, Glenn, but I think that you, Mrs WW & Cmbtengineer and Mikey & Mrs. Magnum may be the only two complete families actively posting. How cool is that?

NES - a board the whole family can enjoy! (if it's a family of gun nuts, that is...)
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Yeah it's cool we finally got Alan on here. Also I pity the person that comes into our house.[wink]
2 ex-mil and 1 Iraq vet, who's still in.
 
Lemme guess, that nice looking "rope" wrap around the backyard canopy columns is actually det cord? [devil2]

And what's a MICLIC, anyway?
 
hahaha yea along with all the tanglefoot and anti-personnel mines spread throughout the yard and the sides of the house.

The MICLIC is a rocket projected explosive line charge which provides a "close-in" breaching capability for maneuver forces. It is effective against conventionally fused mines and, when detonated, it provides a lane 8 meters by 100 meters. The MICLIC system consists of an M353 3-1/2 ton or M200A1 2-1/2 ton trailer (or M200 tracked trailer) chassis, a launcher assembly, an M147 firing kit, an M58A3 line charge and a 5-inch MK22 Mod 4 rocket. The line charge is 350 feet long and contains 5 pounds per linear foot of composition C-4 explosive.


it just sucks when they decide to not go off and you have to do the ole medal of honor run
 
Searching when you do not need to

I have a challenge for those of you that would search your own house.
Give Mike or I a key, so that we do not break anything getting inside, and we will visit you home some night. You can pick the week but not the day.
We will have only Airsoft guns and you must swear to use an Airsoft also. I guarantee that you will get shot a lot before you even know where the shots are coming from. For you this a a very bad bet. For us, this is a sure thing.
 
JimConway said:
I have a challenge for those of you that would search your own house.
Give Mike or I a key, so that we do not break anything getting inside, and we will visit you home some night. You can pick the week but not the day.
We will have only Airsoft guns and you must swear to use an Airsoft also. I guarantee that you will get shot a lot before you even know where the shots are coming from. For you this a a very bad bet. For us, this is a sure thing.
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This I would pay to see. Both for entertainment value, and for the fact that it's sure to be a learning experience for all involved.
 
Chris
i am surely not going into a house that is most certainly boobie trapped with just an Airsoft. He is probably going to rent a couple of attack trained German Sheperds just for the week. I guess that i had better bring along my Hush puppy.

Jar You can have the ticket concession but we get 60% of the gate
 
The only way this would be a meaningful experiment would be if the perp was to use the common reason for going into a strange house, to steal. I mean if you are going in as an assault team (trained as I assume you are) you will not be acting like 99 percent of the bad guys. And joe crook will have his hands full of whatever isn't bolted down.

and as for the defender- Cmbteng remember he is .mil trained to clear houses (and good at it)

I would honestly say that it would come down to who was "on" that day.

am I going to let either of you Knuckle heads at it in my house? Hell no.

And I stand by my statement- you wait for 911 to help where we live unless we get lucky, they ain't gonna be there any time soon. Will we call sure. But we will take whatever means needed to defend our selfs.
 

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