November Scare: Of Fires & False Alarms Courtesy of ADT

It's December. Yeah, it's been a while since I posted anything on my blog. It's not that nothing noteworthy transpired but I was still very busy putting my blogging life on track. Anyway, Halloween passed and nothing scary happened. You know it's always fun when something really freaks you out then you realize that it's not really what you think? That's why it's always fun to put on a "Chuckie" mask during trick-or-treat night then watch people jump out of the way as you cruise past them.

Halloween's long been over. I can't see any residue of it now, but I would like to note something that happened after Halloween that really sent me to panic.
In the month of November alone there were countless fires in California Hills that raised thousands of homes to the ground. It was a scary time. It was also a time wherein people were extra cautious about fires or the possibility of a fire igniting anywhere in the dry part of California.

I was myself not at peace with all that fire news and with all the ashes being blown in our direction even several miles away from where the actual fire was. I knew that anything that has to do with fire will send me to panic.

Then one afternoon after I picked up my kids from school, the phone rang three times. I looked at the caller ID and it was a "1-800" number so of course I was not paying much attention because, I thought it was just some telemarketers. Then the phone rang the fourth time, and it was my husband calling from work, telling me that ADT just called him that the fire alarms in the house went off. Honestly, I felt like I just woke up from a bad dream and realized that I wasn't dreaming at all. I was confused, and all I can say was, "What? I was here all along and I didn't hear any alarm go off." I could sense panic in my voice and I was all nervous. What if indeed there's some fire brewing in the house somewhere? I checked every corner of the house. I was sure of one thing. Our installed fire alarms never rang, not once. While I was checking every corner, somebody knocked on my door and well, guess who stood there? Two fire fighters! They brought along this huge lengthy monster fire truck and it was there in front of our house ready to spray its massive hoses filled with gallons of water to put out any fire. My! I was really in panic mode now. All I could spit out was, "What's up?" They told me that ADT Security called them up because my fire alarms went off. So I told them, "First, the fire alarms didn't go off and second, we are not subscribed to ADT!" So they left without any incident, but I can no longer switch off my panic button. My blood was rushing through my head and all I can hear was my heartbeat. So I did continue with my search in the house for any smoke or anything, then the next thing I hear was, "Sheriff here!" I went downstairs and right inside my house by the kitchen was a police officer ready for some crime-busting action. This time I could feel the sensation of tiny needles pinching my face as the blood rushed even more to my head and my face in sheer panic. Now, I wasn't only nervous but I was furious because I was unpleasantly surprised since stupid ADT could not figure out whatever signal they are reading from their monitoring system. The police officer told me that they got a call from ADT about a burglary in progress. Lucky enough, I had all my IDs to prove that I was the woman in the house and there was no incident as reported. Two hours after the police officer left I was still trying to make sense of everything that happened that day.

See, when we moved in the house, there was already a different security system that was installed and since I thought probably since ADT is more infamous than them then perhaps ADT is a better service. So I did call up ADT to activate the security system in the house but I didn't proceed with it because I would have to spend more for the installation because they couldn't figure out how to make the old system work with their system. To make the long story short, ADT never succeeded in installing and activating a functional security system in the house. So where did they get all that signals that sent firemen and a police officer to the house? I don't know! I guess tech doesn't talk to sales or customer service for that matter. And who's the victim? The unsuspecting resident in the house who doesn't even have a clue that someone out there is getting and monitoring signals that is supposed to correspond to what goes in the house. It's a travesty! How can they possibly provide us with a monitoring service? I don't even get a bill from them for their service. And my God! The attempt to make use of their service was yet in July and four months later their monitoring department still doesn't know that we were never successfully subscribed to ADT. They suck!

I'm sure of one thing. If there even was a real fire in the house at that time, they would have no way of detecting it because whatever signal they're getting to respond in that manner was probably just an erroneous signal that they just can't interpret, and if it was a real fire alarm their system would not even decode it because you know why? THEY DID NOT SUCCEED IN INSTALLING AND ACTIVATING THE SECURITY SYSTEM.

Now, just reliving that incident makes me feel angry. I would have thanked them if indeed they have given me a free monitoring service for months and it was a working service. But it's not! I hate to say this but the next time I will be unduly inconvenienced, I'll wage a war against them in BIG BOLD BLACK LETTERS. Yeah, man, WAR!