I have many things in my house I can not replace and can not be stored in fireproof safes. Many books that are very rare, old video games, very rare guitars, paintings, etc. Sure, I would get money for them if stolen, but I could never get them back. The hassle of getting all the stuff back that can be replaced would be hell. Large LCD tvs, game systems, notebooks, desktops, large flat panel monitors, recording equipment, display items, etc. Are all going to be pain to have to go out and buy again. The cats could be lost as well (they are probably not smart enough to avoid the traffic on the highway nearby and would run if scared). In the case of fire, my favorite clothing, concert tshirts, my pets, all the other things I listed, my backups (I should do offsite backups, but come on, its a house), my furniture we spent so much time hunting down, etc would all be lost.
This is about that extra layer of security when you are not there. We already have a nice safe bolted down in the closet, we keep most of the expensive items and important papers in there. I have access to firearms in under 10 seconds. My cars have alarms, my doors are deadbolted, I have motion sensing lights, etc. But so did the people who were robbed. They know that out here, its hard to tell where that alarm is coming from because of the darkness and all the trees. They know most of the garages in this area have windows (most of the break in's have been though garage windows, then into the house via unlocked door from inside the garage), They know that most of the time people in this area are not home. Luckily, I have a deadbolt to the garage and my garage does not have a window. But I have a nice fenced in back yard with lots of cover from trees. It would be easy to hide back there and take out the back door, sneak in and take what you want right out though the back. Nobody would be the wiser. Also, due to rising tax costs, the area is full of people moving. I would think nothing about watching a bunch of unknown people walking into someone's house and moving them out. If someone however did break in and trigger an alarm, I have a feeling they would not want to stay around and find out the police response time.
I guess what I'm saying is that I have taken all the steps everyone says to take. I own a few handguns, I have a safe, I have trained my wife on the use of both. We have deadbolts on all doors, we lock the door from the garage to the house at night and when we are away. The only thing missing is monitoring of our house while we are gone. I"m trying to find out what the best deal is and who has the best service before I start calling their salesmen in to push their stuff on me.
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