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There's a store that opened up last year called "Burglar Busters" on Post Ave in Westbury, they sell home security stuff. I'd love the peace of mind of an alarm system but I rent and do not own so I dont think I can get one.
The big companies (ADT, Brinks, etc) are now charging around $30. That's without an add-on such as Cellguard which adds $10 or $12 to the basic charge (but allows you to eliminate the $30+ per month cost of maintaining a phone line).
Maybe the smaller independent companies charge in the 20s per month but it all depends what you're comfortable with. I'd rather pay a few dollars more a month and have an established monitoring company like ADT instead of a small local firm who (especially in this economy) could be here one month and bankrupt the next.
We are buying a house with an alarm system preinstalled - hope it is only $23!
thanks!
You can ask the sellers who their monitoring company is, and check with that company for their current rate.
The system will still "work" even if not monitored (the siren will go off, etc etc)... it will just not notify anybody. My nephew is buying a house with an existing alarm system but it's not from ADT which is what he wants. He won't be able to afford to convert the system to an ADT one for about a year, but in the meantime he'll use the system "un-monitored" and then when he can afford to convert it and sign on with ADT for the monitoring he will do that. .
You should still get a discount on your homeowners insurance even if the system is not monitored. Some companies give 10% off regardless of whether it's monitored or not. Others give 10% if it's monitored and a smaller percentage if it is there but not monitored.
Slomin's is primarily an oil company, and they purchase the cheapest equipment and sell it to you.
plus they charge you about $80.00 for a service call. E-Mail me direct and I will explain.
If you're a diy kinda person, there are a couple comapnies online that will monitor your alarm from a central staion for about $10/month. They are UL approved (for whatever that's worth) and I would guess that the big alarm companies that install and monitor your alarm are probably contracting the monitoring service to these guys. You'll need to maintain the alarm yourself, though (hence the diy).
Your alarm system must be reprogrammed to call this new monitoring company, which they could walk you through. The catch is that if one of these big companies installed your alarm you'll need their install code to unlock the software. Again, for the diy'er, you could just purchase a new motherboard online, swap it out with the one from the big company, and then reprogram it. I just did that in the house we bought, and the new board cost about $75 and it took me about 8hrs to get it installed and programmed (probably would take me 2hrs if I had to do it again). A good weekend project....
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