So like I said the other day, I got an alarm system. I chose to go with Guardian Protection Services for two reasons. The first was because my house was wired with a Ranger American system and Guardian bought out Ranger American. The second, and more substantial reason, was because a friend & coworker just recently had a Guardian system installed and he was happy with their service. Unfortunately though, I have not had an equally positive experience.

It all started this past Saturday morning. Guardian was supposed to show up in the morning some time after 10 a.m.. It was roughly around 10 in the morning that you would have found me sitting in my living room wearing nothing but my boxers, eating cereal and frying my eyeballs with SpongeBob SquarePants: Season 2. Guardian would call 30 minutes before they were expected to arrive so that I would have time to dress myself. Then, the doorbell rang.

Moment’s later I was dressed and Chris was allowed in. He was there for a couple of hours setting the system up. After he finished we did a quick walk through and made sure all the sensors were working by opening & closing windows and doors. Then he informed me that owners manual for my system could be found online at the manufacturer’s website; and with that he was on his way. Unfortunately I was to new to recognize what I wasn’t getting:

1. Alarm went off at 3:47 a.m.
2. Never instructed on how to:
1. erase alarm memory
2. change master code
3. add / delete guest codes
3. No phone numbers listed anywhere.
4. Never received lawn sign or window decals.
5. Never received manual (yes, I was told they’re online, I’ll get to this in a second).

So there I was. Wired. Monitored. Safe. You can only imagine how secure I felt that late night when, after an evening at the bar with a friend, I crawled myself into bed in the early hours of the new day knowing that I could not be taken advantage of during what remained of my drunken stupor. Yes I drifted away and enjoyed almost two solid hours of sleep before the alarm went off at 3:47 in the fucking morning!!

That’s right, the sensors in the living room windows went apeshit and thought it would be quite a humorous prank to pretend someone was breaking in to the house. After stumbling to the control panel I deactivated the alarm. Then I stumbled my way to the windows to see they were closed, locked, and unmolested. Then I stumbled my way to my cell phone which was ringing as the folks at Guardian were calling to find out if I was dead or not. I assured them I was safe and attempted to re-arm the system. Since I was never instructed how to bypass the no-longer-responding zone (it’s in the manual) I could not re-arm the security system. So I gave up.

I then proceeded to grumble, rumble, and stumble my way back to bed. That was Day One with the alarm.

The next morning I went online to find that manual. I needed to learn how to operate this stupid thing. Among the great many things I don’t know in life, the model number of my control panel was one of them. So after getting to the website I had to do some sleuthing to find out which of their many, many control panels had found it’s way into my house. After doing so I happily clicked on the “Owner’s Manual” link. I was instantly rewarded with an error message insisting that only registered users may get owner’s manuals. Thanks a lot Chris. You were technically correct, the owner’s manuals are indeed online. But you failed to mention that I can’t actually download a fucking copy!!

I called customer service and bitched about the many things that were not done correctly. I was told that on Monday morning someone would contact me to set up an appointment for a service technician to come out and look at my system. That night, at 2 in the morning, those mischievous little windows did it again. Though I was quite sober and readily prepared this time. The alarm was deactivated, zone bypassed, and I went to sleep.

I got a call yesterday from Guardian’s local office and an appointment was made for a tech. to come out today. I was told sometime from 1:00 to 5:00. “Can we get a smaller window?” I asked, as I didn’t want to take the entire afternoon off of work. I was told that they could call me 30 minutes prior to arrival (ha, we heard that one before, right?).

“Can you make sure that happens, because you were supposed to call me on Saturday and no one did. Tomorrow I’m going to be at work until you call me so if you don’t call me I won’t be home,” I explained.

Annie assuaged my worries with a confident, “We will definitely call you before we come out tomorrow.” (You know how this one ends, but let’s say it anyway.)

Monday night: zone bypassed before I went to bed this time (see? I learn!). I awoke this morning to find that the windows did in fact lose communications with the alarm system. No problem, service tech’s coming out today.

Today at 2:52 pm my phone rings. “Who was it?” you ask? Why it was none other than Annie at Guardian Protection Services! “I’m sorry Sir, but the 30 minute notification we promised you didn’t happen. The service tech is in front of your house right now.”

“Well I’m at work. I can leave right now but It’s going to take me 20 minutes or so to get home.”

Shortly thereafter I arrived home to meet Vince, my service tech of the day. Within 30 minutes Vince had replaced the sensors, checked the system again, given me my house sign and window decals, and not only gave me a little manual but also included quick tutorial of several topics I quizzed him on. Vince had his shit together, I’ll give him that… but the real test will be tonight when I go to sleep without bypassing the windows.

So that’s my first 4 days with an alarm system. Guardian has done anything but impress me. This is made worse by the fact that this is what they do. I didn’t go to a tire shop and ask them to inspect my battery. I went to an alarm company and asked them to install an alarm.

Let’s just sell this damn thing and move out of Texas…