Recipe for Homemade Burglar Alarms

Posted on January 28th, 2008 in Do it Yourself by Alarm

Why would anybody make homemade burglar alarms when home security systems are now so reasonably priced? There are many answers to this question, really. One person might say that he needs a project like this to keep him sane and busy during boring weekends at home. Another would insist that it is his way of keeping his creative juices flowing, hoping to invent an awesome home security device that will make him a millionaire some day. And then there is this middle-aged couple who don’t want to admit that their homemade burglar alarms stringed in their hedgerows are meant to confirm their suspicion that their teen-aged daughter sneaks out the window of her room in the middle of the night. Truly, different folks have different strokes.

But come to think of it, all homemade burglar alarms share one thing in common. They are conceived at the spur of the moment and are meant to accomplish a short term goal. That is why they are ingeniously made of odds and ends that can be found scattered about in the kitchen, garage or workshop. Some examples of these homemade burglar alarms is the one made by a student who wanted to play a prank on a teacher who terrorized his class the whole school year by stringing a pail of water on top of the door of his classroom. Another is designed to catch the mysterious thief who steals the early morning milk deliveries on the front door by tying a fish line to a “decoy milk bottle.” Then, the other end of the line is inserted under the door leading all the way up to the bedroom which is tied to the sleeping owner’s big toe.

The most popular homemade burglar alarms are made of stringed tin cans with one or two pebbles in each tin can. These are very effective especially when combined with barbed wire just like those used in the trench warfare that was waged in the western front in France during World War 1. Another ingenious device makes use of an old rotary type telephone unit just like what a shop owner did to try to catch the person pilfering goods from his shop. He dialed all the numbers of his home phone and when he came to the last number, he inserted a cork on the dialer as stopper which was then tied to a dental floss. He then stringed the floss all over the floor then went home and waited all night for his phone to ring. The idea is that when the thief stumbles on the floss, the dialer will be released and call his home phone to alert him about the break-in. Many homemade burglar alarms have been ingeniously conceived out of necessity for the moment—and necessity, as we all know, is the mother of invention.

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