What is your midnight strategy??

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Fer

New member
If you are a sleep awakened by a feeling that someone might be inside your fence(property limits) or the dogs are barking. What do you regularly do? what are the steps?

I for one do not have dogs, if something like this happens I usually stay still to try to hear something, If I am not satisfied I take either my Bda.380 or my 851SS that are at my nigth table, then take a peek out my bedroom window, second I open my bedroom door, from there I can see the hallway to my kids rooms and can check the kitchen back door, if everything is ok I then move towards the living room(front door), sweeping the house and corners on the way. If I doors are locked and secure I usually do not go outside, but if they where to try to get in the house that would be another story, but I wont risk going out, to many disadvantages I think.
The bda. is chambered no safety finger out of the trigger guard ready for the first double action pull, the revo well you know simple!
 
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CWPinSC

Moderator
then move towards the living room(front door), sweeping the house and corners on the way.
Click to expand...

If they're already in the house, you're a dead man. The first clue you'll have as to where he is is BANG! when he offs you. Even trained professionals do NOT like to clear a house. Think about it...you have to show a light to see everything, the intruder can remain dark. He knows where you are, you don't know where he is. You will make noise searching, he can remain silent.

If the dogs indicate for sure there is someone in the yard, bunker down in a defensible room with the family and call the police. Stay there and prepare to defend until they get there.
 
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miker84

New member
Years ago, I put in a bunch X10 switches in my house. I can turn on a variety of lights using the remote control on my nightstand.

When my dogs start barking in the middle of the night, I turn on the outside lights. Most of the time, its another dog or a deer in the yard. Once it was a young man wanting to see my daughter. I was not amused; he was frightened when I came outside to the sound of a racking pump shotgun.

Its also handy at 6am when I want to wake up the kids upstairs for school.
 
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Brian Pfleuger

Moderator Emeritus
I've never worried that someone was inside my boundaries. Might have a drunk neighbor, snowmobile from Jersey or the farmers 4-wheeler zipping across the property at any given hour. The dog doesn't even lift her head for such things anymore.

Inside the building is a whole 'nother world.
 
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Double J

New member
I like lots of options when dealing with things that go bump in the night. The cameras and PIR sensor alarms together with a couple dogs generally give good advance warning of any creepy critter. I keep the AK and AR beside my bed and I've learned to be quick to get going when I have to.
--If I just venture to the door to check things, I don't go empty handed.
 
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Steviewonder1

New member
Midnight Strategy!

I have all windows and doors alarmed. I have remote X-15 of all first floor lights. I have motion detector lights at the front door, garage doors, and backyard. Alarm is set for instant as everyone is already inside. Hit the all on X-15 switch, lock the bedroom door and wait with Mossberg Pump. No kids in the house just me and the wife.
 
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Dwight55

New member
As CWPinSC indicated, . . . clearing a house, . . . even your own, . . . by yourself, . . . is at best ill advised, . . . and at worst, . . . deadly for you.

If I were more than 60% sure there was someone in my house besides those who belong, . . . my HD weapon goes aimed for the BR door, . . . wife gets on cell to LEO, . . . and I will call out to those out there, . . . y'all better be leaving as the LEO's are on their way.

If they leave, . . . no harm done, . . . no foul. Come into my BR uninvited at nite, . . . that's a different colored horse, . . .

Perhaps you can figure a way to the end of the hall, where at least you are between your kids and the bg, . . . that may be doable, . . . but think it thru real well before you go house clearing on your own.

May God bless,
Dwight
 
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Win73

New member
Think about it...you have to show a light to see everything, the intruder can remain dark. He knows where you are, you don't know where he is. You will make noise searching, he can remain silent.
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My bedroom is in one end of the house. I leave a small light on in the kitchen (opposite end of the house) and a night light on in the long hall. My bedroom is dark. If someone were in the house, he would be in light. I would, in the dark, just come to my bedroom door and peep out. There is a very limited area of the house that I would not be able to see anyone from my bedroom door. I would just wait there. If he were approaching the bedroom, I would just back up to the opposite wall to the door with whatever weapon I chose (9 mm, .45, or 12 gauge) pointed at the door and ready to fire. If he steps in the door, he is dead.
 
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Sasquatch in MN

New member
Cell phone is your friend

If the alarm has not tripped for a perimeter breach and the motion flods are dark, I typically dont worry. Floods lit or dog barking, LEO gets the call. Response time is WAY short here......like 3 minutes....and it helps to have friends there.
 
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rsmckee

New member
due to family issue

I would not sweep a my house due to the fact that my wife and son a in differant rooms then I so my room is the first in the house intruders come to. They open the door And my shotgun is my line of deffence. I also use bird shot. as for wakeing up, I leave that up to the Duke my basset hound that knows when the front or back door open.
 
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JerseyDrez

New member
The only time Id leave the bedroom is if there is some sort of disturbance or feeling that someone or some thing is outside. In that situation, I quickly turn on the floods and scan the perimeter around the house.

If nothing is up, back to bed I go.

If I hear noises in the house, and not just my drunk brother making Ellios at 4:30am, Im grabbing one of my weapons, moving all family into the bedroom, having gf dial 911 in the process, and hunkering down until LEO arrives.

I would never go clearing the house. I am not tactically-trained, nor am I an idiot. Too many people think they are 'ready' for a clearing-type situation, or attempt at trying out their 'shotgun clearing skills' since there is a bump in the night, when it can easily get you killed.
 
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fcs25

New member
As a training instructor I tell my students that if they hear someone in their house do not go looking for them for one reason....they know where you are...you don't know where they are. Lock the bedroom door, call 911 and keep them on the phone until the police arrive.Get behind the bed and aim at the bedroom door....if someone break the door in do not wait,shoot until the threat is neutralized.
 
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JimL

New member
If they're already in the house, you're a dead man. The first clue you'll have as to where he is is BANG! when he offs you. Even trained professionals do NOT like to clear a house. Think about it...you have to show a light to see everything, the intruder can remain dark.
Click to expand...
My very first though when asked for my reaction is that if it is night under NO circumstance will I turn on any lights making myself a target. Perhaps some people have no night vision, but I sleep in total darkness and my night vision is at it's best. Whereas the bad guy MUST have at least a flashlight to find his way in a strange house, while I know exactly where and how to go in the dark.

Depending on your interior layout you may or may not be able to see a lot of it with a quick round-the-corner glance. But, here again, I have none of those silly night lights that turn your house into a shooting gallery, so my glance cannot be seen unless the crook just happens to turn a flashlight on me just at that moment. Even then he cannot shoot me, because I've ducked back out of sight AND away from the line of fire.

Call the cops? In most places I know of, the crook will have carried off the house and contents, dead or alive, by the time the cops get there. (I say that as an ex-LEO so no flames please)

In the event I have to retreat? For the consideration of the handyman type, I have installed extra thick, solid wood doors on my bedrooms in case they are needed. And the bedrooms (upstairs) walls along the hallway have double the number of studs in them, so breaking through it is unlikely as well. Even if someone poked through, the studs are so close that by the time he can squeeze through the half space between studs if someone has not put a .45 slug or two in him, he will have his arm broken in four places with a ball bat - if he could get past the extra nails driven crossways of the studs.

Oh, and the thick doors? They also have 3 inch hinge screws instead of 3/4 inch. And they are NOT drywall screws, rather expensive deck construction screws made of good steel. No one is going to split the hinges off the door frame, because the screws go well into the adjacent stud.

Will he shoot through the door? At what? But I am considering remaking doors with steel sandwiched between wood. (Oh yes, these strong doors have deadbolt locks that also reach into steel plates well attached to the adjacent stud.)

I'm not a boy scout, but I am prepared. (I live a short distance from the county workhouse where escapes are not rare.)
 
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JimL

New member
Part of my midnight strategy was done long ago.

Get security company signs from several different companies and post them.
It confuses the stuffing out of crooks. Also have one that says:

Home Made
Security Alarm

No way can he figure how to disarm that one.

And my entrance doors have labels saying:

.45 SPOKEN HERE

Even crazies look for easier pickings.
 
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Lee Lapin

New member
We have a fence around the house and outbuildings. The gates are all closed and padlocked except when someone is actually going through them. The fences are there to keep the dogs in. They might not keep intruders out, but the property is posted legally and has beware of the dog signs posted as well. The plan is pretty much as follows...

1) Let the dogs out.

2) Listen for screams punctuated by growls and barks.

3) Call back the dogs.

4) Go back to bed. (so far there haven't been any screams when the dogs went out)

The dogs? Three of these: http://www.fila-brasileiro.org/ . Plus a 35-pound Brittany, who has bigger teeth than the Filas.

lpl
 
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Old Grump

Member in memoriam
Fluorescent porch lights are never off, spotlights on garage covering driveway are on motion sensor, night lights in living, dining room and kitchen and both bathrooms so my house is never completely dark. Flashlights by all beds and dressers.

If I hear somebody in house I reach for my bedside revolver and wait for more noise. If nothing I get up and switch to Me. Mossberg and check the dining room, my bedroom is on one end of house and my brother and sister are on the other end of the house and its an open house plan so I can see every room but inside their rooms and bathrooms. Switch is to my left as I go through door, slap on the paddle switches and whole house is lit up. I am expecting it, intruder wouldn't be, advantage mine.

Chances are if there is anything outside its a wild animal and I have no problem checking that out myself. Raccoons, feral cats and one very stupid coyote have discovered I have no sense of humor at dark thirty in the morning. Had one guy show up late at my door, drunk and groggy from being beat up and dumped into the woods next to my house. He didn't even notice I was armed. Fortunately for him sister is a nurse and the ambulance was only 15 minutes away.
 
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