Feeling Safe at Home with a New Baby

We rent a row home in Chicago with a front door accessible by a mere seven steps. No doorman. No buzzer. A lot of people have homes in the city (including all of the homes around us!), so this was not at all a concern to me when we decided to rent the place.

However, last fall, around dinner time, maybe 7:30pm at night, someone rang our doorbell. This was very unusual as packages stopped being delivered around 5/5:30 and we weren’t expecting anyone. The dogs were barking like crazy, but they always do that whenever someone comes to the door…

Dan answered the door, and there was a man there who proceeded to introduce himself politely, then began asking for money. After a decently long explanation of why he needed it, Dan told him honestly that he had no cash on him and apologized he couldn’t help… the guy’s kind demeanor quickly turned when he started swearing at Dan before turning around to walk away (which thankfully, he did leave).

Obviously this event left me a lot more nervous about our home situation. We have a security system, but that doesn’t help when we are opening the door to see who is there.

Of course, it was a one time occurrence… time passed. We forgot about it.

Then, about two months before Henry was born, I was sitting on the sofa, super pregnant, watching a show; Dan was not at home and it was around 10 pm.

The doorbell rang. At 10 pm at night! Of course the previous event immediately entered my mind.

I knew that it definitely wasn’t someone we knew. UPS and FedEx had stopped HOURS ago. This was crazy.

Who. the. heck. is ringing our doorbell this late?!

I was scared. Too scared to even move around in case whoever it was saw me and therefore too scared to look out the window to check. I called Dan as I was basically hiding in the living room to explain what was going on – he was out of town – and he suggested I call the non-emergency police. I even texted my neighbor to tell her what was up since having your doorbell ring this late was VERY bizarre. She was so sweet and offered to have her husband come over and check.

But I did what I do best. I called the non-emergency police who sent someone within a few minutes, and when I opened the door for them I saw that that there was in fact a package sitting there. I felt like an idiot.

Leave it to Amazon to have packages delivered that late at night. What are they thinking?!

Either way – the wheels were set in motion. I knew that even though Dan works from home and was frequently here, there would of course be times when it would just be me at home with the baby, and I needed better assurance of who was outside our door.

Enter Legrand. The brand who quelled all my fears. (They are the creators of the adorne collection – new innovative touch light switch plates and outlets that I will 100% be putting in when I actually own a home.)

Legrand happened to email me a few days after this incidence just by chance asking if I wanted to review their new video intercom doorbell. BOY DID I!

See and speak to the person outside your door without having to answer the door? Chicago isn’t exactly known for its remarkable safety record. So yes, please.

The best part is – there is an option to install it with battery so you don’t have to mess with the hard-wiring of your doorbell – which is amazing for us since we rent and want to take the doorbell with us!

There were a few steps to setting it up – removing the hard-wire piece and attaching the battery piece – but then it just screwed directly into the wooden door frame and voila!

I can now see who is outside our door when I’m sitting in the dining room and better yet, when I’m upstairs in our room, where I often am with Henry. Now I don’t have to run downstairs or answer the door if I’m occupied with baby or if I simply don’t know who it is. There is also a microphone so I can talk to who is outside… a simple “who is it?” And they just talk back and I can hear them on the video base we have inside.

So we got an additional interior intercom kit so we have one upstairs and one downstairs. We keep one on a nightstand in our room.

 

I had Dan go outside and test it so I can show you in a photo how it looks! There he is – holding Henry!

So cute.

As I said, we have two of these monitors – one on each floor of the house. You can technically set up as many as you want depending on the size of your house, but I highly recommend this for anyone with a standard “front door” that anyone can come up to! Especially all my female readers. Safety first, ladies.

I can now sleep peacefully.