We also do a lot of work for a thrift store here in town & they were having a run of break-ins and vandalizings at their store. They didn't want to install a full blown video monitoring system and wanted to just go with the dummies for the "look" of them. They worked and they have been both vandal & break-in free for almost 2 years now because of them. The cameras that we used were . They are cheap, look real & blink. They use a pair of AA batteries and the light is an LED so it will last quite a while. We also put on the windows to boot. They were averaging somewhere in the neighborhood of $500-$1000 in damages a month for almost 4 years and once those went into place, they haven't spent a dime on fixing damages.
As for installing the phone line, it's pretty easy and any electrician can do it. Hell, you can do it if you know how to plug an extension cord in. All you have to do is get to where your lines split after the come into the house and tap into that. I put an extra phone line into my house a couple years ago and it took me longer to
the line through the wall & not screw up the drywall than it did to connect everything. But if you are having an electrician come out & install a couple of motion lights, ask him what he will charge you to run a phone line out there. It's a whole helluva lot cheaper for that guy to do it than to have Qwest come out, screw the finish up somewhere in the house and have to pay for fixing it. Phone lines are easy to put in. You can also run the wire and ask him to do the connection. Just bury the line at least 20" or so. I think code here in El Paso County requires all electrical lines to be buried at least 18", but I'm not 100% on that one.
