Each year, tens of thousands of Palm Beach County residents pay hundreds of dollars to companies that monitor their home and business alarms, ready to send police at the first sign of trouble. But the sense of security they peddle can be illusory, a review by The Palm Beach Post found. Local police agencies, inundated by tens of thousands of false alarms a year, are far slower to respond to security alarm calls than active crimes.

Might want to try having a trusted, hard-core neighbor respond, in exchange for you doing the same ...