By Lisa

On December 4th we had a fire in our house. our dog was the first alert and then the smoke detector went off. It was about 2:00 in the morning and thankfully we all got out. barefoot in the snow but we all got out. when we ran out of the house though, we banged on neighbours doors and nobody woke up so my boyfriend had to run back into the house twice to find a phone to call 911 with. it’s really hard to judge how long that actually took but i am going to guess 5-10 minutes. Plus another, say 5-7 minutes for the fire trucks to get there.

Here’s the thing though, a month before I called DSI, our monitoring company for our alarm, and I was going to cancel the service. I didn’t when the sales person told me that we had 24/7 fire monitoring even if the alarm isn’t activated. That peace of mind was valuable to me so I kept the service.

The whole time the fire was going on and spreading through our house, apparently DSI only got 3 “pass test” (or something) signals. apparently when they initially installed the system in 1998, the only heat sensor they put in was in the basement. DSI is telling me that the technician that set up the monitoring for us a year and a half ago told me that. ’cause apparently he can remember our exact house and exactly what he said to me a year and a half ago. if i was smart enough to keep the service for the fire protection, why wouldn’t i choose to have the appropriate device to make it work?

Anyway, we can only guess how much less we would have lost if DSI did what they promised to do but as it is, we have lost more than half of what we own.

When I spoke with a DSI supervisor since the fire they had absolutely no compassion, didn`t even say that they were sorry to hear about our loss, or ask if we are all ok. After telling the supervisor that I wanted the service cancelled immediately, he could not even tell me if the monitoring fee scheduled to come out on the 20th would still be coming out nor did he say that the payment would be reimbursed.

If you think that you have fire protection through your alarm company, please look into it. you may not be as safe as you think.

And for those of you that have DSI, I highly recommend ditching them because not only did they fail to protect us but they will make things up to cover their inadequacies.

D.S.I. Security Systems Inc

1665 Dugald Road

Winnipeg, MB R2J0H3

Website: www.dsitechnical.com