What are our options for our security system regarding our cats?

Question

We are moving into a ranch home with a walkout basement. The house belongs to my boyfriend's mother and has been vacant for 20 years. My boyfriend and I are finally ready to fix it up and live there. The house has had a security system installed because of past vandalism.

The code pad for the system is at the basement door, but I want it be moved upstairs near the front door. There are 2 motion detectors, 1 in the basement and 1 upstairs in the hallway where the you must cross coming up from the basement steps or in the front door.

My problem is the our cats. My b/f insists we shut the cats into about half the house which will avoid the motion sensors. I want the cats to have free roam of the house, especially since I want their litter in the basement and their food in the kitchen. We don't want window alarms because the windows are old and complicated metal picture windows and there are so many of them. What other options are there?

Answer 1

Can you set the motion detectors so that the weight of the cats will not set them off, but something heavier like an intruder will?

Answer 2

I would speak to your security company as there are different alarms.  We used to have an alarm system at another house and we could set it so only the outside alarm worked.  In other words if someone opened an outside door the alarm would go off.   We did not have alarms on the windows, but special locks.  We had 5 cats in the house.