News You Can Bruise for 2004 September 7 (entry 1)

(3) Tue Sep 07 2004 20:27 PST Porch Light Followup: Consensus is that leaving the porch light on does deter burglary. Reader Vince Janis also wrote in with a suggestion to deter burglary by writing an intimidating name on a dog bowl and putting it by the back door. Why say BEWARE OF DOG when you can say BEWARE OF DOG WHO EATS FOOD?

I turned on the light on Sunday night to see how it would go. The only thing that happened was I forgot to turn it off Monday morning. I should have seen that one coming. I like the idea in principle, but I need a timer or (as Sara suggested) a motion detector.

Comments:

Posted by Frances at Tue Sep 07 2004 23:44

I have my porch light on a photoelectic cell that screws into the socket. On an dusk, off at dawn, easy.

Posted by Mickey at Wed Sep 08 2004 08:22

This may seem like spam, but it isn't.

http://www.smarthome.com/7251.HTML

There's also another X10 product that just barks when activated, and you have to set up motion detectors to trigger the dog bark.

Posted by Susie at Wed Sep 08 2004 15:49

We would leave ours on, I'm sure, if we ever turned it on, but the complex's light is right outside our door and is always on at night anyway.