In the weeks running up to the 2004 presidential election, my yard sign was often pilfered and/or destroyed. After the 4th time, I had had enough, and rigged up a fairly simple alarm to help protect my sign. This post documents how to do it in case you're facing your own First Amendment-hating neighborhood antagonists.
What You'll Need
• Duct tape
• A wire hanger
• Fishing line (string or twine can also be used)
• A personal alarm (more on this below)
The "personal alarm" mentioned above is one of those little keychain fobs that emits a loud, piercing sound when you pull the pin out (see photo below). I got mine, a Nexxtech brand (?), at Circuit City for about $5, but they're pretty easy to find online as well as in retail stores. A cheap alternative to buying one is to find one of the several custom screenprinters who sell these and request a sample unit; many companies will send you one for free in hopes that you'll order a few hundred.
Instructions
- Make sure the personal alarm works. Pull out the pin and then re-insert it to shut it up. Miss Manners suggests warning neighbors, dogs, and nearby members of the Usher family before doing so.
- Straighten out your wire hanger. Using wire snips, cut the wire hanger so that it is about 16" long. Fold that in half to form an 8" stake. If you use a pants hanger (as shown), then you can merely unbend the hook part (which is already formed by two lengths of wire, and clip off the two arms. Straighten it out so it's easier to stick in the ground.
- If your yard sign isn't already in place, stick the frame in the ground. The one I use here is the typical wire-frame design with the plastic sheath-style sign that slips over the frame. If your sign is already up, remove the sign from the frame, but leave the frame in the ground.
- Time for some clever duct tape work. As shown above, tape the alarm to the crossbar of your sign frame, suspending it just below the crossbar, with the pin pointing down towards the ground. Make sure not to cover up the speaker hole with tape, or you'll greatly reduce the volume of the alarm that is intended to scare away your "perp."
- Push the hanger stake you made in step #2 into the ground directly below the alarm. The loop should be pointing up, out of the ground. You want this to be as invisble as possible, so try to get the top of it below the level of the grass.
- Tie a length of your fishing line, string, or whatever you chose to use between the loop of your hanger stake and the keychain ring of the alarm (or whatever you grab onto to pull the pin out). You want the line to have just a tiny amount of slack; not taut, as wind might accidentally pull out the pin, and not loose, or the setup might not work correctly.
At this point, it should be obvious how this works. When someone grabs the sign and pulls on it, the string will yank out the pin on the alarm. The would-be vandal will then be holding a screeching yard sign, with no obvious means of making it stop, making it unlikely that he'll carry it off.
- Slide the sign sheath back over the frame, covering your apparatus.
If you can suggest any improvements to this design, please let me know by leaving a comment. And, if you try it out and it sees some action, I'd love to hear the story. :-)
Note: I also posted this over at GearBits.
Update: Holy cow...the Rec List?? You guys are too kind. :-)
Update #2: If you're serious about getting pics of the idiots trying to make off with your sign, and have $100 or so to spare, grab a motion-activated trail camera, mount it somewhere convenient, and point it in the direction of your sign.