Burglaries heighten security awareness

March 7, 2006

MARY AMES\Frontiersman reporter

MAT-SU - On a day she expected to be like any other, a Meadow Lakes woman drove home in the middle of the morning, talked with a man whose car was blocking her driveway about his lost dog and remained in her car with the window down as another man came around the side of the house.

She didn't know it at the time, but when the second man opened her car door to speak to her, Susan Duran was staring into the face of a burglar who, with his companion, had broken a back window, gone through Duran's house pulling out things they planned to haul away, escaped out the broken window when they heard the garage door open and were so brazen they showed their faces, up close and personal, to a homeowner who didn't yet know her home had been violated. Duran said she and her husband are getting a home security system.

The Durans and others in the Valley who want to deter criminals have some choices to make about home security systems, from off-the-shelf systems available in local stores and on the Internet to state-of-the-art systems offered by private companies. Two security companies in the Valley have been around for a while and a couple are just starting up.

Richard and Raven Siegrist already had a business that offered monitoring systems, but after reading and hearing about Valley home invasions, they decided to adapt their equipment to help homeowners keep criminals at bay.

The Siegrists had a neighbor whose home was broken into three times, Raven Siegrist said, and in their neighborhood off Palmer-Fishhook Road there have been six break-ins that they know of in the last six months.

&#8220Our neighbor set up a camera to catch the thief,” Raven Siegrist said. &#8220The guy found the recorder, followed the wires to the camera and stole the camera. We set her up with a wireless camera with a remote control. We showed her how someone could get in her door in five seconds with just a credit card. She has deadbolts on her doors now.”

Richard Siegrist has spent most of his working life adapting the latest electronic equipment to fit the needs of researchers at the Geophysical Institute in Fairbanks and for people who have physical disabilities, through ELKS-HELP. Now he and his wife sell monitoring and alarm systems for home use.

&#8220I adjusted technology for monitoring all sorts of things, from up into the aurora to down with the whales,” Richard Siegrist said. &#8220Now we've got to make it tough for the criminals. It's amazing how gutsy these people are.”

Doing business as Custom Cams of Alaska, the Siegrists sell a vast array of equipment, including miniature cameras as small as buttons, focusing on the personal service they provide.

&#8220It depends on the people and their needs,” Richard Siegrist said.

Another newcomer to the home security scene, Sheirwin Caldwell, sells portable alarm systems her brother helped design. The tattletale monitoring and alarm system has a base station and 16 different accessories, including motion sensors, cable loops and vibration sensors, that can be added to it.

Caldwell, who also does business as Tundra Rose Construction in Wasilla, said the rise in crime in the Valley prompted her to sell the tattletale.

&#8220We have to take care of the people we love,” she said.

Caldwell sold a couple of systems to a fellow contractor who had been ripped off for about $6,000 worth of tools and materials in one night and had been spending his nights out on the job site.

&#8220What he's got is peace of mind,” Caldwell said. &#8220He called me and said, ‘Now I can sleep at night.'”

Audio Services Corp. has been in business in the Valley for 10 years, but started selling alarm systems three years ago, according to James Bushey.

&#8220Business was kind of slow, but growing the first year,” Bushey said. &#8220Now we are quite busy. For the past couple of months, we've been on the go constantly.”

The granddaddy of Valley security companies is Guardian Security, a business that started in 1974, according to Mike Heath, an administrator with Guardian.

&#8220The challenge is that outside of the cities, where the troopers don't have the resources or the manpower, we have the ability to dispatch an armed guard much quicker than the troopers, unless they are right next door,” Heath said.

Like the others in the business, Guardian offers a range of services and prices.

&#8220When you look at many different areas of protection and the increase in crime and sophistication of the criminals, you can figure roughly about a dollar per square foot of coverage,” Heath said.

All four businesses agree that just the stickers on the doors and windows indicating a home is protected by a security systems is a deterrent to opportunistic criminals.

&#8220They work,” Heath said.

Contact Mary Ames at

352-2284 or mary.ames@

frontiersman.com.