I want to go barless! No, I’m not thinking of giving up my favorite pub. Nor am I considering walking around without adequate support. After I announced my desire to the alarm company salesman his face turned bright red. He looked at me eyes wide, mouth agape and managed a confused, “Er….um…?”
“No, NOT braless. BARless. The security bars. I want to take them off. Off the house. The security bars.” I point to the windows.
The salesman is relieved to have a place to look other than the floor. David lightly pokes me in the back and gives me his best, “I can’t believe you just said that” expression.
In my quest to live without bars on the windows, I stumbled across alarm window screens. The window screens are interwoven with detection wires. The detection wires blend in and look like normal window screens. If someone cuts the screen it will trigger the alarm. There is also a connector between the edge of the screen and the window frame causing the alarm to trip if the screen is removed. This is wired into your alarm system and can be turned off at any time (to clean the windows, etc).

I like this because, unlike our existing alarm system, an alarm will sound before an intruder has a chance to even get inside our house. Not all alarm companies are supporting this technology yet but a large number of them do.
Some companies even make the window screens with wooden frames. We may end up purchasing the alarm screens directly from a manufacturer and paying for our security company to hardwire them into our alarm system depending on how the different quotes come out.
In the mean time, David has requested that I refrain from saying “I’m going barless.”
Update
The company that we have decided to go with is:
Alarm Screens Van Nuys
7661 Densmore Ave #7
Van Nuys, CA 91406
ph: 818.901.9033
They specialize in custom burglar alarm security screens, installation, service, repair, regular screens, and window cleaning.
We had our alarm company run the wires and wire them into our alarm system. The screens are being made and should be ready in a week.