It’s always great to get away and go on vacation and get away from your troubles and concerns. However, you don’t want to be worrying about the safety of your home. Unless you live in a bunker, you can’t prevent determined criminals, but for the rest of us, there are ways to not set your home up as an open target for burglars. Today I’m going to share some ways you can keep your home safe when you’re away.
Many of these items sound like common sense, and that’s really what it’s all about. With a little forethought and planning, you can relax easier while you see the sights.
General home safety precautions are:
- If you have an alarm, use it! If you can’t afford one, then see if you can source an alarm sticker for your window from someone else to use as a deterrent.
- Keep any shrubbery trimmed so that your neighbours can see anyone who might be lurking about. You’re less likely to be broken into if your home is in clear sight.
- Speaking of clear sight, have a motion sensor light installed.
- If you have a light that you can set on a timer, put it to use, even when you are at home. Then when you’re away, there won’t be as big a difference in the internal lights of your home.
- Don’t keep your valuables in plain sight.
- Don’t leave keys in easy access near the doors.
- If you use a password memory program on any of your electronics, be sure to turn it off. You don’t want someone stealing a hard drive or laptop and then also having easy access to all of your passwords and accounts!
- Make sure at least a neighbour or two have your contact details in the event they see suspicious behaviour and they want to get in contact with you.
Most burglaries are opportunistic. They’re out to make a quick buck, but don’t want to try hard; they’re looking for an easy mark.
To avoid these creeper burglaries:
- Be sure all of your windows are locked; even the ones on upper floors.
- Double-check that you have locked all of your doors.
The main thing is not to let your home look empty, especially if you’re going to be gone for more than a few days. You want it to look like there are still people coming and going, and living there. There are many ways that you can do this.
Other Ways To Keep Your Home Safe:
If there is someone you trust with your home, you can have them stay there while you’re gone and take care of everything. If this isn’t possible, perhaps you have a friend or neighbour who will help you out with the following:
- Keep your plants watered, both indoors and out. Dead plants are a sign of neglect and unattendance.
- Keep your lawns mowed so that your yard doesn’t look out of place on the street.
- Have someone stop by in the morning and evening to open and close your curtains. Closed curtains all day or open ones at night does stick out and draw attention to a house.
- If you will have a car still at home, ask someone to drive it around the block and park it in a little different spot upon their return so that passersby will see the movement. This works especially well in the winter when the tire tracks (or lack of them) is a giveaway when you would usually be coming and going daily.
- Speaking of snow, if you’ll be away in the winter, arrange to have your sidewalks shovelled.
- Arrange for someone to take out your garbage bins as usual. If it’s a neighbour, they could put a little of their trash in yours. Bins conspicuously missing from one home when the rest of the street’s are lined up draws attention.
- As for your mail, there are a couple of options. You can pay your mail provider to hold your post until your return sot that is doesn’t build up. A second option is to have someone come by, empty your mailbox, and put it out of sight until you are home. (Make sure it isn’t just stacked up in a pile in plain view of the windows.
In some areas you can let the local police know you won’t be home so they may do an extra patrol in the area. This sounds like it would in fact, benefit your entire neighbourhood to have more visible police presence. However, I’m not sure how many ares offer this. But if your does, take advantage of it.
Another option you may want to consider in some situations is not to let anyone know that you’ll even be away. I have done this in the past when I lived in apartments and didn’t trust the building manager. As long as your rent isn’t due while you’re away, you should be good to go. Just be a little sporadic with your mailbox for a couple of weeks before hand, or place something in it to use as a cover so the other tenants don’t see your mail piling up.
Now that you’re all set, your bags are packed, and you’re ready to leave on a holiday; you can relax knowing that you’ve done everything you can to prevent a break-in.
Is there anything you do that we should know about? Please let me know in the comments below this post; I’d love to hear how you secure your home.
