Tirzah Pestenski has been a Monitronics customer for about six years and recently took us with her in a cross-country move from Las Vegas to Florida. Because she’s a long-term customer, we wanted to know what security means to her in her home. These are her words.

“It’s not just security while I’m at home but while I’m away—it’s protection from burglary or fire. It’s 24-hour assurance. Even if I’m not present, somebody is, and that is our alarm system.

Security is also portable. I first had the security system in Las Vegas and what was nice is that when I had to move across the country to South Florida, I was able to call up Monitronics and they reinstalled the system for me flawlessly. It was one thing off my plate that I didn’t have to worry about and the sense of security was still there. Monitronics was on top of it.”

We want to know your story–what is security to you? E-mail Leah Shafer at lshafer@monitronics.com and let her know.

What is security: Keeping my kids safe

North Texas resident Kristine Soto started using Monitronics long before she had children, but their arrival has given new purpose to her monitored alarm system. We asked her to explain what security means to her now. These are her words.

“When we moved into our house, it already had an alarm system in place, and we chose to use Monitronics to monitor it about five years ago, almost six.  We really haven’t had any problem. When I leave a window open they are quick to call!

“But that was before we had children. What is important to me is keeping my family safe from predators and burglars. I have two boys who are four and three and they’re not old enough to say no to somebody if that person comes up with candy or special treats. They don’t really know the whole ‘say no to strangers’ thing. We don’t want anybody walking into our house and the alarm keeps that from happening.

Another big concern is fire. The kids are interested in matches now because they’ve seen me light the candle and seen me put the matches away. I have had to move them from the drawer where I kept them, but what if they found the matches and took them upstairs and were playing with them? This is why it’s so important to us that our smoke detectors are monitored. It just doesn’t take long for kids to figure things out. Our alarm system keeps us safe in a lot of ways.“

Our own Monitronics employee Leah Shafer is a Dallas native who never thought much of alarm systems until her house was burglarized. Now a monitored security system is part of her personal sense of safety. These are her words.

A close call made her a believer

“I grew up with parents who locked every door and double checked the windows at night. But that didn’t stop us from getting robbed when I was 14. In addition to big-ticket items, they took all my Wet ‘n’ Wild make-up, a crimping iron, and a pair of my M.C. Hammer pants (hey, it was the 80s). But more than that, they stole my sense of security in my own home.

“So we installed a monitored alarm system. For several years, it was just a fixture on the wall that we didn’t think about too much. But that changed one summer night when we woke up to the beeping of the back door being opened. At 3 a.m.

“We had forgotten to close the garage door and at least two people had been rummaging around in there, moving the lawnmower out into the driveway and trying to use a screwdriver to start the car. Who knows what they were planning on doing once inside the house, but it couldn’t have been good. When they came through the back door and tripped the sensor, that alarm may have saved our lives. They heard it and ran away.

“Thankfully, I’ve never had another instance like that since that hot summer night many years ago, but it instilled in me a belief in the value of arming my system every time I leave the house and at night. Nowadays, I have more valuable things for them to steal than scrunchies: my personal sense of safety has no price tag.”