What To Do If Your Home Security Alarm Goes Off By Accident

It happens. You come in from the garage with your hands full of groceries, you forget to disarm in time, and suddenly the whole house is screaming at you. Or your kid gets home from school before you and does not know the code.

False alarms are more common than most people think and they are nothing to be embarrassed about. What matters is knowing what to do in that moment so it does not turn into a bigger problem than it needs to be.

Step One, Stay Calm and Disarm the System

Go to your keypad and enter your disarm code. The alarm will stop. If you have the ADT app on your phone you can also disarm from there. Either works. Once the system is disarmed the siren stops and your monitoring center is notified that the alarm was triggered.

You have a short window to do this before the monitoring center calls you. With ADT it is typically around 30 seconds after the alarm triggers before they reach out. So move with purpose but do not panic.

Step Two, Answer When Your Monitoring Center Calls

This is the most important part. When ADT calls, answer it. They are going to ask for your verbal password. This is a word or phrase you set up when your system was installed, completely separate from your numeric code. It is the thing that tells them you are actually you and not someone who broke in and is pretending to be you.

Give them the password, tell them it was a false alarm, and they will cancel the dispatch. No police response, no problem. If you do not answer or you cannot provide the password, they will send police. That is not the end of the world but it is an unnecessary hassle and in some municipalities in Bucks County repeated false alarm police responses can result in a fine.

What If You Forgot Your Verbal Password

This happens more than people admit. If you cannot remember it, stay on the line with the monitoring center and be as cooperative as possible. They have ways to verify your identity. It may take a little longer but they will work with you.

After that experience though, write the password down somewhere safe and make sure everyone in your household knows it. A password that only you know does not help when you are not home and someone else triggers the alarm.

The Most Common Causes of False Alarms

In my experience the number one cause is just forgetting to disarm after coming in through a door. The second most common is user error during the first few weeks after installation before everyone in the house is comfortable with the system. After that it is usually doors and windows that do not sit fully closed.

Most of these are easy to fix once you identify the pattern. If your alarm is going off repeatedly for no obvious reason, something in the system needs attention. Call your monitoring company or call me and we will figure it out. A well installed and properly maintained system should not be false alarming on a regular basis.

One Thing That Helps More Than Anything

Make sure every person in your household who might be home alone knows the disarm code and the verbal password. Kids, partners, parents who visit, house sitters. Anyone who might walk through that door while the system is armed needs to know what to do. That one thing eliminates probably 80 percent of false alarm situations before they ever happen.

If you have questions about your system or want to talk through how to set things up properly for your household, give me a call. 215-872-7473.