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Hello my name is Joseph Beige, I’m a real State Attorney on Long Island and I’d like to welcome you to today’s podcast before we get started as always I’d like to thank our returning viewers.

I appreciate your patronage I appreciate you watching us tonight and all the support that you give. If this is your first time checking us out thank you and let me explain a little bit of what we
do.

With the help of a guest I’m going to discuss a topic that would be of interest to you in the Long Island Real Estate consumer the hope is that you’ll find an interesting informative and it will make help you make a better more informed decision on your next real estate transaction.

Now today’s subject is going to be another one of those where we discuss the subsystem that’s pertinent to the real estate what I like about these subjects is they cut across whether you’re an owner or prospective owner whether we’re talking residential or commercial landlord or owner.

It doesn’t make a difference this is a system that you all will be familiar with or should be and that’s today we’re going to be talking about alarm systems. Now when it comes to an alarm system most people fall into one of two camps.

Either they have no system whatsoever or they’ve cobbled together as sort of a do-it-yourself kind of homemade system usually relate stating mostly with a battery powered smoke detector maybe a CO detector and they leave it at that.

Today I’m going to be joined by Craig Mele of all action alarm Inc and we’re going to be discussing alarm systems options what things to think about and a lot of things that you may not have thought about because it may not have been instinctive to you however I think it’s very important

Craig thank you for being here today.

Hey Joe thanks for having me I appreciate it now.

Before we get going the first thing I want to do is please tell us a little bit about yourself and how and all action alarm because I think it’s a great story.

I mean just in your opening statement I have a lot of things to add there but um so my personal story I mean the company too is all action alarm started almost 42 years ago no it is 42 years 1980.

so um my father started the business um I mean he’s probably one of the you know first people you know to get into the business um I mean it’s been around a while but um so I’ve grown up doing this.

So when I was I don’t know teenager I would start working with him on the weekends um during the Summers and then I went to college um while I was in college my brother Brent who’s my partner now um he was already starting after he graduated college he’s older.

He already started working with my father um and after I graduated and once again during college I was doing it during the summer is working with them you know learning the technical side of installing security systems and seeing what it was all about.

But when I graduated uh Brent and I sat down and we were discussing I mean we liked what we were doing we enjoyed it um we saw the value in what we were giving to people um you know so we decided you know let’s do this.

So now we’re both involved um dad’s retired about three years ago so Brent and I have been running the I’m probably running it for longer than that but um you know that’s the history and…

That’s great.

My story and I and I love when I hear about companies that have gone on to the second generation third generation for a number of reasons one is it’s very difficult to have success in business from one generation to the next that’s where they usually fall apart.

Again any business that’s been around as you said 42 years tends to know what they’re doing which is hence why I asked you to be here today.

Real fast though all action also cut where does it cover is it just now Source Suffolk does it cover the city the five boroughs.

So our main area would be Long Island Nassau or Suffolk um we do go into Queens um I mean we’ll cover the five boroughs I mean we have customers in Jersey and Upstate um usually their clients who have second homes.

So we’re gonna take care or their business um is here or their homes here and their business is in the city so you know take care of those clients but mainly uh Long Island natural Suffolk.

Okay now we talk about we use the phrase alarm system and I’d like to Define that so everybody knows what it is we’re actually talking about because that’s one of those terms where I think if you ask somebody what’s an alarm system everybody thinks they know but it’ll have a different uh definition.

So when we talk about an alarm system today at a modern alarm system what are we really referring to?

I mean that’s a loaded question the security system alarm system has come a long way we have what we call the umbrella um and there’s different levels to it

So and what encompasses what a security system could be nowadays you have your life and safety devices um so like smoking carbon monoxide detection then you have your burglary to you know protect and deter burglars you have your environmental devices like water sensors low temperature sensors you have your cameras.

And then now you have all your smart home devices so all of this encompasses the security system um and it’s you know outside the box in a lot of Senses but adding more and more security and I could go into stories um of what all that can do for you um to create an actual actual security for you versus a lot of what you see out there like the illusion of security.

So basically now I’m going to correct myself um I shouldn’t I should no longer refer to him as alarm system no because they’re no longer the old system where it was basically a you know mechanical uh magnetic detector that set off an alarm I mean now they’re much more sophisticated.

Yes, I mean those are still part of the system but there’s just much more you can do you know specifically with technology these days.

But now let’s talk about that a little bit because you mentioned on a couple of different subsystems within the alarm you know security system I guess.

Sure.

So take them off for me to retrain my brain um but now let’s talk about some of those because for example I know you have things such as window sensors motion detectors um you also mentioned some that were environmental some that dealt with uh some other issues.

So let’s talk about staying with um to make it manageable let’s stay on from the burglary side of the system what are some of the things or some of the parts that a consumer should be familiar with.

So staying on the burglary side I mean you have your typical senses you have your doors door sensors window sensors motion detectors glass break detectors those are some of the most common parts of the burglary alarm system basically you’re protecting any point of entry in the house so this way the alarm is going off um when someone tries to enter the home.

Now you also mentioned environmental okay now what is it the now let’s we’re going to talk about the environmental subsystem what is that.

So believe it or not the most common um cause of an insurance claim is water damage I was speaking to an insurance broker and they were telling me this.

So one of the things you could do that we do it’s very common now and insurance companies are even giving a discount when they have these monitored water sensors.

And it goes beyond that so basically if there’s a leak or you know you’re boiling your washing machine the common spots your dishwasher I mean you put them everywhere you need toilets.

If water is detected it will alert you um nonetheless now since you could have an app you’re going to get an alert personally on your phone but our uh Central Station operators are going to alert you as well we’re going to give you a call saying listen we see there’s water there.

You know it’s something you need to go address and this way you’re eliminating the damage sure.

You get to mitigate it because you’re aware of it and you can take steps to you know have somebody go over you can go over and things of that nature.

Exactly I mean it goes to the extent now where you could put in a um a water flow valve um which requires a plumber um and what it does is if it detects unusual water flow in the system it’s Tech it connects to your water main in the house so the incoming water main.

So if it’s text unusual flow it will actually shut the valve off so no more water flows throughout the house so if there is a leak then it’s just going to limit the amount of water that’s gonna uh come out of the pipe.

Now let’s go back and we talk about systems again a little bit more people go to the big box hardware stores they get a kind of a do-it-yourself wireless system you mentioned Wireless um in the old days everything was hardwired you also mentioned the Central Station and things of that nature so let’s start to break these down a little bit.

Sure.

When you when we say Central Station because not everybody who’s watching some of these may be new homeowners and again people who are a lot younger than me which is pretty much everybody it seems nowadays um I’m there with you may not be aware of what a Central Station is because they’re used everything being on their phone so when we talk about a Central Station what does that mean.

There’s a lot in there um so Central Station uh essentially what it is is where the alarm is sending its signal to so when the alarm triggers from smoke or burglar or you know the door being opened what happens is the system sends a signal the two-hour Central Station and the operate we have operators sitting there 24 7 uh 365 days a year they see it comes up on their computer it says fire uh first floor smoke detector and now what that operator does is first thing is they’re going to call you um to verify whether it’s false alarm because unfortunately you know 90 of alarms excuse me are false alarms.

You know you burn something in the kitchen and you forget you’re letting the dog out and you forget to turn the alarm off so you want you don’t want the fire department or the police department there for no reason.

So the operator is essentially you know someone in the middle to intercept that call to make sure that it’s not a false alarm and if it is an actual alarm that we’re dispatching the proper authorities um and making you aware that okay we couldn’t get in touch with you um no one answered we’re going to ask you for a password if you do answer.

And then if we get a like a fire alarm we’re going to dispatch the fire department and now um you’re gonna know about it that we dispatched and um that’s essentially what the Central Station is for to alert you and alert the authorities.

That’s and I think that’s a nice difference because again other unlike a do-it-yourself system that just sends you a text or sends you a warning that you know if again you may not have your phone or you may be asleep this one has an actual human being who’s making a judgment call um as a backup.

Absolutely I mean there are some DIY systems that provide Central Station services are you ever go to IKEA you ever buy something from Ikea.

I don’t know if you can only buy something for me the way you’ve got the store set up you end up with a few things.

Yes you can’t get out of there without seeing everything so um you know you come home you got this box you put in your dresser you get all the pieces laid out in front of you you’re looking at these instructions that barely make sense you’re putting this thing together you don’t know if you put this screw in the right spot you know the things wobbly when you’re done.

So the same thing with the security system do you really want to take that chance that this thing’s gonna fall apart on you when in time of need you know just like knowing where to put that screw is smoke detect is not just something you put on the ceiling besides knowing how many you need and what location should have them.

You know there’s certain spots on the ceiling like if there’s a vent on the ceiling it has to be a certain distance from there because if the air starts blowing out and there’s smoke in the house that air is going to push the smoke away from the detector so proper placement.

So from someone who’s not a professional putting it together and not not having the understanding of these things you know doing it yourself you know you could leave yourself open you beg.

You know I’m not trying to make a pun but it gives you a full sense of security.

That’s exactly it you have the illusion of security.

Now we’ve talked about burglar we’ve talked about environmental and we’ve talked obviously just about the fire but another one that your company Offices Medical which is not something that at least I expected you know what I normally thought about a security system/alarm company um so just take a few moments and explain about how that integrates into the whole system.

Most of the systems have some sort of medical integrated by default meaning on the keypad or on the app you have your Panic buttons and you could hit please Panic fire Panic or medical panic.

When you get deeper into medical which is what we call pers for personal emergency response system which is those buttons you see like I’ve fallen and I can’t get up right um those you know especially with a growing elderly population um they’re very common and very useful it’s something you keep on yourself.

Nowadays, you could take them anywhere if you want to meaning they have cellular ones so the whole idea of it is something happens you fall or you’re not feeling well you don’t have to get to a phone um you could just press a button and that’s where Central Station comes back in the operator actually comes over the device and asks are you okay now you’re going to tell them what’s wrong and if you can’t talk we’re going to dispatch an ambulance at that point.

It’s something you know that could be incorporated into any system and it could be a standalone device as well.

I want to talk about when we talk about these systems especially um domini I’m going to talk about the burger burglary system seems like a lot of people want to discuss it clients and so forth have unreasonable expectations about what an alarm system or system can or can’t do what security system can do a lot of it seems to come from TV and movies.

Everybody thinks that you know they’re buying a system you know and you know right out of the box or for you know fifty dollars a month or whatever the fees you know is they’re all of a sudden going to have something that looks like it came out of it you know uh Jason’s good morning or Tom Cruise.

Laser beams.

Yeah exactly I mean as soon as some somebody’s going to get a fingertip inside the window and alarms are going to go off the hounds are going to be released and all of that um and so part of having a system is about understanding what it can and can’t do there’s a lot of things it won’t do but there’s also a lot of things that think it will do that people don’t expect it to do so I know that’s a lot how much time do we have.

I mean here’s the thing and it comes down to providing actual security and not just the illusion of security so what you see a lot um I’ll go into homes where the potential clients looking to either upgrade the system they have they’re not happy with their current company and I’ll come in they’ll show me what they have.

So you know to give me an idea of what you know is currently in place a lot of times you know you got two doors alarmed and a motion detector in the house and that is the it perfect example of the illusion of security because you know with motion detectors if that’s your primary when you’re in the house and you turn your alarm on okay if you have an emotions text you have to bypass it because you can’t move around the house with a motion detector.

So now all you have is these two doors alarmed so really you don’t have any protection at that point all your.

Windows are exposed.

Exactly unless they’re coming through those two doors that are alarmed um you know nothing’s gonna happen um or if you have pets in the house and now the pets have free range of the house assuming they do you can never turn the motion detector on so now you’re really leaving yourself exposed and and you if you could follow I’m not a big fan of motion detectors they’re they’re good as backup but the other thing is with the motion detector.

So say um you I don’t care I only turn it on when I go on vacation this is you know what the client is uh you know thinking in their mind um I  said that’s that’s great but okay so you turn the system on the motion detector’s on you got your two doors alarmed now this person comes in comes through the window motion detector picks them up alarms going off but they’re already in your house no matter what that person knows they have I don’t know however long before the police arrive.

So they’re gonna do whatever they’re gonna do I mean they’ll take five minutes instead of an hour in the house but they’re gonna grab and run so they’re already in the house let me ask you a question if you could have a security system you know Money Was No Object someone was trying to get in or anything you would want the security system to go off as soon as possible.

Sure.

The best way um is to protect the whole perimeter of the house um yes it may be more of an investment but we’re talking about your security here if you’re going to make that investment you you don’t want that illusion you want it to actually work you know there are certain ways you know to go about it I don’t know if I get off the right I don’t even remember the original question.

Well basically we were talking about expectations and I think you hit on that more than you realized basically what it was was when you buy a do-it-yourself kit or you go on uh one of the specials from a you know certain uh companies that are on Long Island that you know you get a bare bone system you get a door and you think what you bought is an illusion you spent good money but you really haven’t made a protection you protected yourself the way you think you have.

Correct.

If you and you know the expectation like you said is this is in Hollywood if you want to stop somebody from getting in it’s possible to be alerted when they come in um but it’s not as simple as just throwing up a simple motion detector and saying okay now the room is covered I know I’ve been in involved in with motion detectives you know a fly lands on it you know I mean it’s something that didn’t sound stupid but it sets it off and the more they go off and the more

And I’m sure you’ve heard this from clients as well false alarms tend to say what the hell with it I’m just going to bypass this and then now all of a sudden you spend good money you only bought yourself an illusion and then you’ve even diminished that by not using it uh to the extent that even it was capable of being used.

100%.

You know now when it comes to video how has that changed the alarm and the security systems industry.

So it’s another tool and I mean videos become so popular now because there’s tons of consumer products out there you could get battery operated ones excuse me and just you know place them somewhere connect it to your Wi-Fi um video is like I said a great tool in addition to the security system in just like with a lot of what’s available now um giving you awareness of what’s going on your kid is you know now going to school on their own coming home on their own.

When they come home not only can you see that they came home because now the camera sees you send you a notification um your your kid uh Joe Jr puts his code in the uh keypad on the door lock which is all integrated into the same system unlocks the door they you get the notification okay uh Joe disarm the system um he unlocked the door I could see it was him I could see he doesn’t have 10 of his little friends hanging out with him as well.

So it’s giving you awareness it’s not as much of a deterrent anymore as it used to be because the burglars know people have cameras nowadays.

Just come out of a pandemic where everybody was wearing a mask so nobody that doesn’t even raise a red flag anymore.

It doesn’t I mean your primary uh source and them best defense is the burglar alarm when it comes to that the cameras are great for awareness seeing if something does happen you could go back and check on it if you are putting cameras in make sure you have recording once again the DIY type cameras um where you have to pay a monthly fee for the video storage for the cloud storage make sure you’re paying that monthly fee.

Now with Central alarm as we discussed earlier is monitoring the the alarms whether an environmental burglar fire whatever it may be um if your system has video is integrated the central Alum also watching the video.

That’s a good question that is an option um it’s not common it’s more on a commercial type application that will do that where alarm goes off video pops up on the screen for the operator and that has to be set up that way Central Station cannot just go into the camera.

You’re not being spied upon.

Exactly.

Privacy concerns and so forth right you shouldn’t be worried about that.

right most secure type of camera
system is to do a hardwired local system
As a recorder in the house um you don’t have to worry about if your Wi-Fi goes out not having uh recordings there’s no monthly fee for the storage um and it’s the most secure type system even if you lose Internet you’re still going to be recording.

And let’s be honest too most people have that Wi-Fi router pretty easily accessible because that’s what they need to be and Crooks unfortunately for us are not that stupid uh and if they think there’s a system they are probably smart enough to know how to disable the Wi-Fi you know pretty quickly.

It’s unfortunately it’s not that difficult um there are certain applications show that I would say Wi-Fi cameras are a perfect fit because they’re not using it specifically for security they just want to keep an eye on right exactly so there are and we’ve done plenty of them.

Watching the kids watching the babysitter watching the dogs keeping an eye on Grandma if you have an elderly you know person living at home with you.

And that’s part of the discovery when I meet with the client is you know understanding their needs uh learning who they are so we could come up with the best solution that’s going to fit your lifestyle.

What is you probably the biggest misconception that the public has when it comes to security systems that you would like it to clarify with them.

Biggest misconception I mean I go back to those motion detectors.

That’s fine you know and over but basically then like as you said earlier people put in over abundance of confidence in the one piece of equipment that they’ll least likely to use they’ll buy it and turn it off.

It’s Non-Stop and and you said it yourself and then you have the false alarms and you stop using the system we we we get a list of people who are not turning their alarms on so and one of the things we do that one of the things that I say make us different is we keep in constant contact with our clients it’s not like we put the system in and now you’re just a number in the system if you have an issue okay call us we call and recommend doing inspections once a year.

We call when people we see that they’re not using their system because we want to know why is something wrong did something happen um most of the time if it is something wrong um they’re like yeah I just haven’t been able to call you I haven’t or they just stop using it.

It becomes a burden  you know which means it wasn’t a system again if they didn’t accurately relate to you what they wanted and what they can use or they didn’t follow your advice and got a system you know again the motion detectives being the perfect example they’re overly relied on those because they were cheap and easy and it kind of ended up being more of an inconvenience.

Now I want to lead it back to real estate with a little more of a specific question um when we have home buyers potential home buyers you know and they hire a home inspector the home inspectors look at the house they don’t generally get into the subsystem like the security system.

So if I’m a homeowner or potential homeowner I’m looking at a house and there’s a system there what kind of questions should I be asking the current owner about that system.

So things I would ask one is what kind of coverage does this system provide um you know are all the doors and windows alarmed do you just have that two-door and motion type system.

The biggest thing is um are your smoke and car I mean do you have smoking carbon monoxide detectors I hope the inspector is looking for that at least um but are they monitored going to a Central Station where you know the fire department will be here.

So getting an idea of what’s in the house um and what type of system they have um are you happy with your car and company that you’re using you know that’s important because you know that company is currently or was until this point monitoring your system and if you weren’t happy you would just you know uh content and you know.

Just paying the monthly fee for ETC.

Right that it happens all the time we’d happily come out there and inspect the system for you um discuss your options and at least give you an idea of what’s there and what kind of protection you have whether you use this or not.

Somebody’s watching this and they turn around and said okay they’re going to certainly give all action alarm a shot they want to get a security system but they want to start looking at um and interviewing companies maybe they’re outside maybe they are up in the Bronx so they’re you know farther Upstate what are some of the questions or how should they evaluate a security systems company to make sure they’re getting a quality one.

One of the biggest things nowadays and I do it myself I’m sure you do it go online look at reviews um it’s it’s honestly it’s very helpful you want to make sure that when the sales rep is coming in your home they’re making it all about you and understanding your needs um if they come in and they and they say okay you got to do this this this they’re just trying to get in and get out.

Right if they’re trying to sell you a one-size-fits all look for something that’s tailored.

Right I know for me personally I can’t speak for anybody else that the whole purpose is to educate them to educate the client so now they can make the best decision um to come up with the right Solution.

That’s interesting that’s a great one so basically one of the ways to evaluate it is when that representative of the company left do you feel smarter about the system than you did before that rep was there.

Perfectly said.

That’s excellent that’s excellent Greg I want to thank you for being here thank you okay I hope everybody found this interesting uh Craig’s information is going to appear at the end of this as always so you can reach out to him.

I’m again Craig thank you for spending your time today uh to everybody I hope you found this interesting I know I did the security systems industry has changed there’s more available than it ever was it’s not just about burglar alarms are keeping people out of keeping your stuff safe uh the environmental alarms especially looking out for water heaters things of that nature the places where you can have leaks.

Check with your insurance company you may find that the discount that you get on your homeowners insurance May offset a lot of the our monthly monitoring fees all right.

Again, Craig thank you for being here

Thank you so much.

My name is Joseph Page, I’m a real estate attorney on Long Island thank you for watching
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