Security Horror Stories

It brought a little enjoyment to an alarm maintenance when the customer had an interesting pet! This customer had an English Bull Terrier. A lovely dog and always a pleasure to play around with. It had an obsession with tennis balls - they were everywhere around the house! I didn't realise this was because the dog pushed them with his nose from room to room. I kept throwing the ball for him to catch, but everytime it would hit his nose and bounce off in a different direction, one of which being a ornament cabinet. The customer loved horses and had lots of horse figurines made of clay and china. The tennis ball bounced around a bit and broke the legs off many of the…

Just been to a simple panel swop-out , get rid or that old ZX6.... 1 door contact , 2 pirs , 1 panic button , 1 bellbox (no SAB) with flashing led , all wired off one 8 core cable.. This company have literally thousands of systems in and around the Greater Manchester area.. I often wondered how they can do an install for under

Now I have read all the queries on here about 'standard wiring colours', and fully agree that we should all aim to be different, some even use a different wiring standard for each installation. But the job I went to today... Thought it would be easy enough, panel upgrade from Castle 1700 to Euro 28 (both ID), upgrade all 14 existing detectors, 2 new detectors, and upgrade to ID Plus. Wasn't too bad, apart from the wiring colours used - different for EVERY detector! Some with 12V on blue/yellow, and ID on Black/Red. ID+ on blue, ID- on yellow, you name it, even through to orange and pink used as a pair. How would you remember what you did to each detector when it cam…

Hi All Just because I am a little bitter and twisted about it right now I thought I would pass on what has been my Xmas horror story. OK no names will be mentioned, but for 7 months I have worked for a respected manufacturer of CCTV intelligent solutions. The company was recently acquired by a PLC and subsequently I was made redundant at the end of November. I am not an idiot and I saw it coming, so in my final weeks I thought I had secured another job with a new company selling intelligent CCTV solutions and all was happy. Once I informed the new company of my redundancy, I was asked to come in to see them. I was waiting for an emailed job offer that never turned u…

Hi all had to share this one ! In my days with secom as a service engineer i got the chance to meet this nice customer which stayed in a very expensive house near a well known hotel (golf) Anyway all the other lads were winding me up about this woman as they had heard story's about the subi who had installed the job getting trapped in the loft ??? Yeh right i thought nice one. Arrived @ the house @ the end of a nice street,top of the range bmw in the garage ect ect ( you could see she had money ) On walking into the house i noticed the system was way over board ie vipers everywhere contacts on everything & pirs every area including the cupboard where the panel wa…

Having over the years dealt with security guards here's some stories 1-7.00 on a sunday morning alarm will not set goes out after a quick coffee hi what seems to be the problem well the alarms not working ok show me punches in his code hits A 1 zone open see it's not setting that's because your front doors open oh ok do you have anything for me to sign does paperwork are you leaving now no i'm on all day then the other bloke comes on at 1800.So why phone at 7.00 in the morning ah just incase it won't set for me on friday. 2-4.30 now the early hours of the monday morning control room phones to say a security guard has placed a call for a pharmacy and has said that the a…

Got called to a system yesterday afternoon just before finish time, customer said it was false activating on Zone 4, which he said was the garage door (for the record, this system is a take over). Fair enough, probably a faulty contact, damaged cable or loose connection I thought. Got my meter out, tested the contact, seemed fine. Gave it a sharp tap with my terminal but the reading did'nt budge. Twisted the zone pair out at the panel end and metered the cable, which turned out to be OK. I walk tested the panel, and zone 4 and 5 are showing as open?! CHecked the cable list and zone 4 is the BACK DOOR contact, not the garage door as I had been told ( ) and zone 5 is the k…

I have a horror story for you, One of the engineers is nearly finished an install on a single storey office complex. It used to have an old system in so he starts to remove it, Every thing is going fine until he tries to get the old metal bell box down. He was on ages but it was to rusty to remove, so he has a brain wave . He drills a 20mm hole through each side of the box and feeds a catinery wire through it and then ties it onto the back of his car. At this point the customer is a little conserned about any health and saftey issues so the eng has a chat with him and calms him down. The eng tells the customer to stand back as he jumps into his car, selects first gear, …

Ive been trying to share this for weeks. The subject wouldnt load anyway we use this for training Jef

i had the trainee engineer on the phone last week with a low resistance fault on a sounder line.Knowing the site i asked him to check the external sounder for water ingress.The sounder in question is a big industrial yoda alarm. Sure enough it was filled with water which went all over him when he took the front off.He had to take his clothes off and sit nude in his boiler suit while the staff put the wet items through the tumble dryer.

Not really a horror story (although it might have been for my digestive system) but a few months ago me and a collegue were at an old ladies house just doing a simple repair to some mains powered smokes. It didnt really need two of us, so my mate stayed outside making a few phone calls. I got offered some tea, which I always accept (makes people feel like they have someting to contribute and stops them 'standing' over you.). It was honestly the worst cup of tea I'd ever tasted, and I've had some real dishwater in my time. The lady went upstairs, I ditched the tea. All of a sudden she came down and found me back in the kictchen. 'Oh ,your well trained' she said, thinking…

About a year ago i arived at a house to instal a small bells only system. The customer was a youg single female, she made us a brew and we advised on the panel location which was above the lounge in the bed room wardrobe. the customer then went out shopping and left us to it. So we go upstairs and open the wardrobe only to find a large box in the bottom just were we needed to get a board up. As we lifted the box the top came open Well it was totaly full of well used and very sticky adult toys, loads of vidios and outifts could not beleave it as she was well aware we needed to move it. so we left it out on the bed when we had finished the job. Have never been back si…

Oh My God..... Been to a job today...... Even after all the Xmas decs where out the floor was boarded and it will take me another 2 days to get to the front of it..........ITS ONLY A BUNGALOW!!!! Garry

Woo jesus have you seen it got to be one of the scariest things you have seen in ages.... but still its for charity so i bought one, Ime gonna hang it from my xmas tree to keep my little girl from touching the lights.

I know I shouldnt have done this, but familiarity breeds contempt.. Saturday I was doing an install. Ripping out old equipment and panel and ancient omnicron communiator LOL Took out fuse spur fuse, I carried on cutting old mains cable out of old panel - one core at a time and taping up as well to be on the safe side LOL - I know you lot are cringing here LOL, when bang, me jumped, end of my red line cutters dissapeared across the room Yes you guessed it - the soft sod who installed it had wired the NEUTRAL through the fuse side of the spur - the live was live ALL the time. I know I shouldnt have cut corners and I should have disconnected all cables fuse spur sid…