The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
They are supposed to make residents safer, but in some cases home security systems are making taxpayers poorer. Firefighters continue to respond to false alarms stemming from the Protectron security systems installed in many Flin Flon homes last year. 'These people have to start monitoring their alarms better because it's a nuisance and it costs the city a lot of money,' says Coun. Ken Pawlachuk. 'Sometimes we send 12 people to a (false alarm). It costs a lot of money.' But while the problem has been occurring in spurts for multiple months, the city is stopping short of billing homeowners whose systems are behind the false alarms. 'Typically before we resort to that, usually we try to work with the people out of a sense of trying to avoid results that may be too harsh,' says Chief Administrative Officer Mark Kolt. False alarms stemming from the Protectron systems was particularly problematic in the latter half of 2012, when there were as many as five or six a month. Resurfacing The problem subsided but is now resurfacing. In April, for instance, two of four calls that came into the fire department were false alarms related to the systems. Coun. Pawlachuk worried whether the repeated false alarms would in time have a 'cry wolf' effect. 'Everybody knows with false alarms, after a while you cry wolf all you want and maybe nobody's going to start showing up to them,' he says. The city has made repeated efforts to educate residents on ensuring their systems do not produce false alarms. This has included a series of advertisements in The Reminder. The message is getting across. Fire Chief Jim Petrie says the people whose systems caused the last two false alarms knew there was a chance they could be billed because they had read it in the newspaper. In the event an alarm goes off and no one is home, Petrie says, firefighters are obligated to respond and break into the house to be certain there is no fire. With a slogan of 'Life... Without worry!', Reliance Protectron Security Services last year made a push to sell security systems to area residents. As a result, many Protectron signs popped up in Flin Flon yards as a warning to would-be intruders.
