As this is being written on a cold January day, a sturdy young man is drilling, hammering, and wiring to install a home alarm system for us. In my wife’s ambition and intent, this is our mutual Christmas present. If it works as the salesman put it, we should have personal protection against health distractions, against fire alarms and against bad, burglary intrusions into our house.
We have lived in this house for 42 years without any of those calamities. But, for a long time, we have talked about installing a corrective system. And now, as we reach ripe old ages, we are taking precautions.
We had one earlier problem. About 5 years ago, our hotel telephone range while we were attending the RSNA. Our neighbor told us that the toilet in our powder room had cracked and water had been trickling around the main floor and the basement for several days. We called our insurance company. They called a salvage organization. I called the plumber and the furnace maintenance company. It was a big chore, involving replacement of most of the main room floors and carpets, dumping some of the possessions stored in the basement, installing a new toilet, and paying for weeks of salvage efforts to dry the soaked studs and joists. Fortunately, the furnace was not damaged and the plumber reconnected the rest of our water supplies. Some four months later, everything was put back to good condition and I wrote a grateful letter of thanks to the insurance company for paying most of the costs. Indeed, we were so impressed with them that we bought shares of their stock and now the dividends come close to matching the insurance premiums.
Our other precautionary action was to turn off the main water circuit every time we leave home for more than a few hours. All of that leaves a sense of relief and also contributes to our conversations and resolution to do something more comprehensive about the other safety elements of our house.
We are contracting to get an electric system on our doors and major windows to sound an alarm when someone tries to break into the house. This involves hooking up these alarms with our telephone system so that any intrusion would sound an alarm to be monitored by the company. If we are at home when someone tries to break in, we will hear an alarm and can telephone the county police and/or fire stations. But, if we are not at home, the alarm will sound and the company will call the same public servants to speed out and check the house. Part of the logic is that raising an alarm should intimidate the potential burglar and the burglar to see the sign posted in the front yard might be persuaded to try robbing some other house.
The other part of our motivation involves our own health and the risks that grow as our age ripens. A couple of decades ago, my sister equipped our mother with alarm systems for her protection. Part of that involved placing telephones in almost all of the rooms in her house. The other involved a digital system that my mother wore as a necklace. And when the alarm was pushed, it sent a signal to the monitor. And the monitor immediately called the police and an ambulance. One day, my mother stood up out of her television-watching chair and one leg crumbled. She fell down and managed to push her alarm button. A few minutes later, the police chief was picking the lock on her door and the ambulance arrived to haul her off to the local hospital.
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