User Panel
Posted: 3/3/2006 6:14:41 AM EDT
Hey guys, me and my wife just moved into a house, in a nice neighborhood, surrounded by bad neighborhood (trailor parks and slums).
Yesterday the garage door was open in the morning, I thought maybe I had opened it by accident, but today it is open again! The old man across the street said he saw it open at 4am Is this the work of theives? I am sleeping tonight in the garage with a 12ga shotgun and flashlight, wish me luck, If It opens, I am going to blind whoever is outside with my 120 lumen light and bumrush them with the shotty in hand Already called the cops, said they knew nothing about it. |
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Does your garage door opener have a fixed code in it? If so, change it. It could also be lots of other things that set them off.
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Yeah, I am doing that today,
But why always in the middle of the night? Our garage door is very loud, It has to be happening around 2-3am or we would wake up. |
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definetly change the outside code. do you have wireless garage door openers also.
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Sodomising the bad guy is a new one to me. |
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Not to worry it's mostly likely NOT the work of theives.
I had a similar issue with my Sears garage door opener a number of years ago. It turns out the 'reverse sensor' was way too sensative. So when the temp changed and the door sat a bit differently it would open. I just had to adjust the sensor a bit (turn the dial with a screwdriver) and I never had the problem again. Sure was frustrating to figure out though. |
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we have a keypad and and remotes That temp change issue is interesting, I will look into it. |
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Maybe one of your neighbors uses their door opener at that time of day and it opens yours too? See if a car leaves one of your neighbors house soon after your door opens.
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Maybe install a cutoff switch that it's got no power to open.
And claymores. ;) |
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I install openers once in a while for folks, and almost always, I install a circuit that is on a switch, with the switch either inside the garage if it is an attached garage, or in the house. That way when you turn in for the night, you can power down the door, and make it next to impossible to get the door open. |
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In my teenage days (yes, they had primitive garages back then), I discovered that my remote would also open someone else's door. I used to push the button as I drove by on my way to work (no, I wasn't riding a dinosaur).
(If you're reading this, whoever you are, I apologize. I've matured. Really.) |
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Why did you call the cops for your garage door opening by itself?
What did you expect them to do? |
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Had that problem in my former apartment. They figured out the house across had the same code. Well actually in talking with the guy that lives there he has a homelink controller in his car and it was opening my garage door when he open his.
Oh the apartment complex change the unit out to a different brand. Actually did it to that entire side of the building. Never happened again after that. |
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Same thing happened to me - also with a Sears model. |
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My neighbors had the same code as ours for a while. Flipped a DIP switch and haven't had a problem since.
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Mine did that, a police/fire radio transmitting nearby is one of the things that can open them. Along with crooks driving around with remotes.
I wired the input power through a light switch, problem solved. |
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Mine started opening in it's own, turned out to be a bad remote.
Spent $20 on a new remote at Lowe's, programmed it, and the door stayed down. Hopefully, one of these suggestions will get you fixed up. Freaked me out when it happened the first time. Middle of the night, so I grabbed a gun and went to investigate. |
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I think I wet my pants laughing at this, though I didn't think of the question till I read the post. "Sir, we have two basic options. Number 1, I send a patrol unit by to blast either the motor or the switch (your choice) with his shotgun. Number 2, I send an evidence technician by to seize either the door or the motor (again, your choice) and put it in the evidence warehouse. Any one of those should stop the middle-of the-night door opening, but of course there's no guarantee. Now, if you're inside the city limits, I think the fire department will come over and either short the motor out or burn the garage down (or both). However, they don't respond to calls out in the county. Thank you for calling. In the future, with questions of this nature, please use our non-emergency line. Goodnight, and thanks again for calling the office of Sheriff Larry Garry, who works hard for the working folks." |
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You live close to a Navy/Air Foce base?
I've heard of planes opening doors before. |
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+1 When I lived in a Condo, a neighbor a few doors away's opener would sometimes open our garage. Changed the code and never had the problem again. |
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There was a thing on the local news I saw a year or so ago. They found with the original codes, right out of the box, they could open a significant number of garage doors. Most people leave their codes factory set, and at least in the past, the factory only used one code, which I guess was probably all of the switches turned one way.
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There should be a nite "Lock" swtich on the manual control in your garage so that you can disable all remotes & controls.
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Be sure to spend the night in the garage naked and coated in vasoline. Tin foil hat would be good too. Unless you shaved you head and dunked it in purple food coloring until your head is completely purple.
That would be awesome. Then you can jump out naked, bald, lubed with a purple head and a shotgun yelling GIANT PENIS IS GONNA F YOU UP! Post a vid. |
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There were two guys here who used to pull practical jokes on each other, usually based on Alabama/Auburn football games. Years ago before the openers got sophisticated, one guy got the other's code somehow and did the same thing- drove his friend nuts. |
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Yup, mine has that feature, too. Unfortunately, mine is a feel good thing as it doesn't work for shit. |
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+1 |
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When I was a teen my friends and I used to push the remote for their garage door as we were driving down the road just to see how many doors we could get to open. We thought it was a fun little game to play. Calling the cops is pretty funny.
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MY garage door started opening on its own also,it was probably 10 years old.
its pretty scary when it opens in the middle of the night, it got me out of bed real fast. i replaced it. that took care of the problem |
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Unplug the friggin' motor! [Napoleon]Gosh![/Napoleon] |
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Be sure to hide behind your ammo fort (tm) when lying in wait in your ambush position. Also be sure to have a solid comm link with somebody in the house that can lay down converging fields of fire.
Get a new frequency scanning transmitter/receiver set. They are practically impossible for the average thief to crack. Around $40 |
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"Hello, Police? Uhh.. yes, I'm just calling to see if theres been reports regarding a rash of garage door openings in this area?"
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You owe me a new keyboard for that. Laptop keyboard, at that. |
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Don't call the cops...call Mulder and Scully. |
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In a related story, our DVR has a bunch of crap on it that we didn't record
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All my neighbors have remote openers. I still get out and unlock and lift it by hand. Sheesh, even in the bloody rain. I guess the day I can't manually open it, I'll park outside. A lock is much better than a code.
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Some garage door openers have lock buttons, my friend locks his out every night....If might want to try this first.
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My God I have not laughed this hard in a long time.
thanks for everything fellas mao |
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There was a burglar around here (SE WI) that was caught breaking into people's homes and eating their food, watching TV, sleeping and doing his laundry. He left cash and valuables alone. |
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Could be RFI. (Radio Frequency Interferance). Lots of hams know about this one: the garage door opens when they tune up on the 40 meter (7 MHz)band. Turns out that the distance from the wall switch to the motor was 1/4 wavelength on 40 meters!
Also I've heard of Airforce 1 doing this... everyone's garage door, cell phone, car alarm,etc. going off when AF1 flies overhead... because of the jamming it puts out. Might even be a CBer. good luck... and bring some tissues to clean the shotty. |
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Oh no, what's going on!! The garage door opener has become self-aware!
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A lot of the guys that install garage door openers are lazy, they install a door and leave the remote on the factory pre set code, some of the remotes all come with the same code preset, you are supposed to change it after installation.
99% chance that if you change the code your problem will go away, someone else nearby has an opener on the same code, change code, problem disappears. There are usually some dip switches you can change, it doesn't matter what you change them too, just make sure the home unit and all remotes are changed to the same NEW code. |
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I work in the Apartment industry and had a problem like this once. We have direct access garages to the apartments and for some reason remotes for someone’s garage would open someone else’s garage. There were 4 or 5 effected. I just deleted the remotes from memory and reprogrammed them. You may want to think about getting a new opener with rolling code technology. With this type every time you use your remote it sends a different code and stops thieves from using code stealers to get your code and opening the door. Some may laugh about this but sunspots can affect things like this, they can interfere with radio waves and electrical devices.
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This happend to me as well. Well, without the police, shotgun, vaseline, and tinfoil.
Any storms in your area lately? Mine was a semi-fried cirucit board in a Sears unit. |
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