False alarm freak-out

I know that having the burglar alarm is a good thing, but jeebus did my blood pressure go through the roof this morning.

This morning around 10:30am, I was in my bedroom working on my bank account, when the house alarm went off. I didn't recognize what it was for like 30 seconds, and when I did it didn't really register that something might be wrong. I ran downstairs to shut off the alarm, and saw Henry walking away from his chair. No big deal, I thought, maybe one of the cats got into the basement.

But then I looked at the basement door, and it was locked and I hadn't opened it for like three days.

The phone rang (I knew it to be the alarm company) so I ran back upstairs, chasing Henry in front of me, to answer. The alarm company said that the basement motion detector had set off the alarm, and since I knew that the basement door was locked and both cats were in the bedroom, I had no idea what was going on. Being alone, I asked that they go ahead and send out the police. I locked my bedroom door, and waited for the police to show up, basically with my heart racing and crying a little.

DH happened to be on the computer in England about this time, so I quickly dashed off a message to him. I was convinced that I could hear sounds in the basement now, so I called 911 (the police called to check it out, and they said that if I heard anything I should call 911 right away). Anyway, to make a long story short, the police got here, I waited outside while they checked out the basement, and they came out a short while later telling me that there was no evidence that anything had happened to set off the alarm.

Then what the heck set it off? I called the security company to ask for help in case there was something wrong with the motion detector. The girl on the other end suggested that I check it out for spider webs and ants; apparently they set off basement detectors all the time. Sure enough, there was a spiderweb over the cover and a little thing (maybe a spider's meal?) hanging right in front of the detector. I cleared it all off, and the girl recommended that I get some kind of bug repellent in the area to keep it from happening again.

All I can say is that I'm really glad that this didn't happen at 3am in the morning. And my heart has finally calmed down from all the excitement.