Many turn a deaf ear to house alarms

A poll of 500 householders by market research company TNS shows 23 per cent would do nothing.

A further 27 per cent would just look out the window to see if anything was happening.

Dennis Bell, of Bell Security, said: "There's so many alarms going off all the time, that's the problem."

His comments were echoed by Dr Maryanne Garry, Victoria University senior lecturer in psychology.

"If it's your alarm, that's different," she said, "but if someone else's goes off, why should people care?"

ADT Security general manager Ken Pascoe said monitored alarms were the only way to counter growing apathy.

The police agreed, saying that with a monitored alarm at least you knew someone would respond. The survey showed 82 per cent of households without alarms would feel safer with a monitored one.

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